After almost six hours, it sings a killer ballad. The Indian girl Luisa Maria, who previously portrayed the drag queen Taylor Mac as a victim of the cruel resettlements in the early 19th century, does not want to sing children's songs anymore. "The Banks Of Ohio" comes from this time, today we know this song of a woman murderer from the young Joan Baez or Johnny Cash, both are restrained versions. But Taylor Mac, creator and head of the show, puts his whole voice into the song, and that means something.
Mac does not move to this smashing performance, although "A 24-Decade History of Popular Music," which celebrated its European premiere on Thursday night at the Haus der Berliner Festspiele, is actually a whimsical musical (a crazy beautiful). But Taylor, the old theater hare, knows: others are responsible for movement - a king, or even a queen, does not have to trample himself. A crowd of elfin barbarian aides, the so-called Dandy Minions, are his court. They distribute props in the hall and caress the audience sometimes in passing with a foulard.
But the high and low point of this first evening, ending on the bloody banks of the Ohio River, requires concentration. Light, voice, presence: boom! From the indigenous victim becomes an acting person, the girl puts down his white name and is now called Ellipsis, in German: omission. "I'm gonna, I'm gonna ..." Mac begins the last sentence, and then leaves the evening in the balance: The future must remain open, everything else means bondage. Mac, the crazy queen, stands there for about two minutes and does not make a face. The hall is racing.
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Drag-Performer Taylor Mac: Across the US HistoryWhat happened here? We entered this performance in 1776, with the American Revolution. We have seen soldiers as masked gays and heard from the period to 1836 about 51 songs, which were brushed almost all against the grain. For an hour we wore a blindfold to understand the blindness on the battlefield. We wore underwear on our heads when we were bald, or flowers in our hair. We drank beer or fed each other grapes, some made a polonaise.
Not just tell diversity, but mean it
Sounds awful, but it was wonderful! Because Taylor reminds Mac of something that has become very rare in the theater, both poor and expensive: community fostering. Not only telling diversity to increase oneself, but actually meaning diversity. Sounds like church, and that's it.
Each chapter of the four-by-six-hour show is only shown once in Berlin, the next parts will follow on Saturday. A retelling would not hit the core. It's more of an attitude than an action, an experience and an insane performer. To Taylor Mac.
His American English is quick and slippery. It also sounds a bit south, because a touch of Southern Drawl for those who are not from the southern states, acoustically reminiscent of a splayed little finger. Taylor Mac grew up in California and was the latest in New York City drag queen. Already in the detail of the stage accent, however, shows the great program of this, you have to try the phrase: unique 24-hour review of 240 years of American history in 246 songs.
This stage celebration does not seek the queer distinction to the majority society as at present most other forms of queer theater. The show, which is seen for the first time in Europe, revolves around the game: it is about the subversive opposite of seeing the majority society itself as queer. The mixed audience of queer and heterosexuals in the Berliner Festspiele speaks to Mac again and again just as decidedly, because it is important to him, not just to play the gay funny, but to point out the common ritual of different people: Tonight we all become Americans, queer, even before we know it.
We hear the big cutlery
The means of this reversal are known: transformation and costume of the binary gender reality, to music, singing, direct address and participation of the audience, crass, even very funny stories of violence, sex and drugs. The result is wonderfully old-fashioned, with time politically correct revue theater, but almost never reveals his crude humor. And indeed: After the first six hours you get out of the show machine just before midnight.
The concept of "A 24-Decade History of Popular Music" is rigorous and allows many border extensions precisely because of this clarity. Every hour covers ten years of US history, with six to twelve songs each being heard, which were particularly popular in this period in the US or parts of it. The orchestra starts with 24 musicians, one has to go every hour. At the end, on October 20, Taylor Mac will be on stage alone. Until then, Matt Ray leads the band on the piano, which is also extended by Berliners, which sometimes comes at the expense of precision. But we hear the big cutlery.
Big Theater is sometimes just a big player: how Taylor makes Mac anecdotes into stories, hardship collides with humor and always surprised, that's the real event. Taylor Mac is a great vocalist, but above all he is a world-class emcee. And the number with the Native American, formerly Indian, the Mac asks on the stage to bring in his version of the story, is not bad either: He told then nothing of reservations, but of a very funny gay SM experience in Berlin- Schoeneberg. That's the real freedom.
Further performances: 12, 18 and 20 October 2019 at the Haus der Berliner Festspiele