Taylor Mac

I don't actually remember the first time I saw Taylor Mac, and this seems like a hideous lapse in my memory since I'm now pretty sure he's a genius. I do know that I found him totally intimidating with his crazy make-up and pseudo-drag. His look read a bit confrontational to me. And maybe it is, but now when I look at him, I see a stellar performer with a ton of heart and a surreal sense of humor who also gives really good face.

Taylor's epic five hour masterpiece The Lily's Revenge was one of the greatest nights I've spent at the theater (or really anywhere). It actually felt magical. Like for real magical, not I'm-hyperbolizing-magical. His show The Walk across America for Mother Earth earlier this year didn't fully hold up in comparison, but how could it? It was still wonderful.

And last Sunday at the new and improved Joe's Pub, he told the audience of a new show he's working on that I would actually think about killing someone to get a ticket to. A history of pop music in 24 consecutive hours of concert, it's not only about covering the ground. It's about endurance, what happens to the voice under duress, and I assume, the impact of sustained viewership on an audience. Because what his work always has, even at its most outrageous and outlandish, is a depth of humanity that it seems can only be authentically captured by moving into the realm of the abstract.

At the first of a series of evenings trying out songs for the 24 hour show, he tackled on decade only-the 1970s. From "Bohemian Rhapsody" to "Put the Lime in the Coconut" to a Broadway song so obscure that even I had never heard of it, he dove into disparate seeming material and managed to make it all feel of a piece. He may not have worked out a narrative yet, but the bits of patter between songs did loosely connect to his goals with the concert, his family history, and his own connection to music.

Though he has the capacity to shock and the greater capacity to make just about anything amusing, it's his ability to cut through every layer of artifice (his own and that of the material) to moments of breathtaking sincerity that draw me to him. He just fascinates me, and I'd watch him do anything. Even for 24 hours.