Taylor Mac is fierce, fiercer than Christian Siriano or Amy Winehouse or any alumni of Destiny’s Child, hell, at times, fiercer than Cher, and that’s quite an icon to cross. Part of it, I’m pretty sure, is the look - in his one-person show, The Young Ladies Of…, the compelling season opener of new artistic director Bonnie Metzgar’s first season at About Face Theater, the 5′11 Taylor Mac wears a tossed Shirley Temple wig, a helter-skelter Baby Jane-style dress which looks like it was wrung out from an automated carwash line, half a pantyhose, a thong made from brassieres, boatloads of golden eye glitter, and bright-red, lip-exaggerating lipstick. Add to this a ukulele and a vaguely Southern accent that can come off as both seductive and harsh, and you have someone who looks like a cross between a washed-out Bette Davis and Heath Ledger’s Joker character in The Dark Knight, with a dash of gay pornster Chichi LaRue. Taylor Mac, physically, is both intimidating, and strangely fascinating. But more than his physicality, his work defines fierceness - it is courageous, take-no-prisoners, outrageously unfiltered, intellectually stimulating, an intriguing blend of the personal redacting and amplifying the political.
Oct 04
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