Note: A review of the performance on Friday 29th June 2018.
If you'd told me at
7.35pm last Friday evening as, disgruntled, I watched the audience continue to trickle
nonchalantly in (the advertised start time of this three hour show
was 7.30pm) that some two and a half hours later I'd have a
supporting cast member sitting beside me pretending to be drunk while
I patted his hand and Taylor Mac sang a lullaby and, more
importantly, that I'd be finding this conceit touching rather than
annoying I doubt I'd have believed you. But so it was. Regular
readers will know I'm not a fan of immersive theatre – that this
show, which is full of it, gradually drew me into it tells you how
remarkable a piece of theatre this is.
This performance is
the first three hours of a twenty four hour marathon, exploring the
history of the United States since 1776 through its popular music.
Originally staged as a non-stop 24 hour performance in New York City
it has been broken down into a variety of other increments around the
world. According to Taylor Mac the plan is to stage it in
London in increments (a segment every year or every two years were
both mooted). On the strength of this episode there's no question in
my mind that the rest should come over.
These three acts
cover the years 1776 to 1806. The first decade is primarily concerned
with the American Revolution, the second takes us on a wild story
about the plight of women, the third a drunken night out in a tavern.
For me, the best of the evening is to be found in sections 2 and 3.
Taylor Mac's
performances of the songs, backed by a twenty four piece band are
strangely compelling from the outset – early on I sometimes had
trouble picking out the lyrics but as I got more used to his vocal
style this ceased to be an issue. In the full show one band member is
lost at the end of every hour – here we don't really get that
effect but there is a lovely trio for Mac, his costume designer
Machine Dazzle, and departing tuba player Reuben Cohen at the end of
section 1. The band, a mixture of Taylor Mac regulars and local
musicians, play superbly throughout, under the expert direction of
pianist Matt Ray and with particularly notable contributions from
guitarist Viva DeConcini and supporting vocalists Steffanie
Christi'an and Heather Christian.
As a historian of
the US who originally specialised in this era (a major reason I
decided to see the show in the first place) I found it fascinating to
listen to many of these songs – especially the revolutionary
related ones in section 1. Alongside them Mac runs some amusing riffs
on what the meaning of the revolution actually was bringing in Tom
Paine, attacks on Congress (which have a clever contemporary
resonance) and economic questions. Having the gallery rip up bits of
paper containing the names of congressional delegates and scatter
those scraps on the stalls below produces one of the first remarkable
images of the evening. Other political elements in this opening
section feel more forced – the apology to Native Americans for
example. I also got on less well with the immersive elements – we
are asked at the start to stand up and do a kind of warm up, and to
sing Yankee Doodle Dandy while my section of the audience was
pretending to be holding bayonets on a group pretending to be
prisoners – though, as I say the overall effect of that last
section with the tiers above pretending to be disputing the
constitution and hurling down the bits of torn paper is rather
extraordinary.
Section 2 moves into
a riff on the song “Oh dear, what can the matter be” in which
Mac embodies both Beatrice (waiting for her lover Johnny to return
from the fair with blue ribbons) and Katy Cruel and leads us into a
somewhat labyrinthine narrative about the emancipation of women which
ends up with “Jesus Christ, the apple tree”, the entire audience
being provided with apples and instructed to bite into them at the
same moment (again a striking effect) and, finally, Mac being hoisted
into the air for the finale. Oh, and this is without mentioning his
extraordinary section 2 costume which involves a smoke puffing
backpack like object. Apart from anything else this is a remarkable
total spectacle.
By this point, although it occasionally unnerved me
that I had ended up with empty seats on either side of me, and there
are supporting performers roaming around the auditorium throughout, I
was pretty much converted to the show. Yes, there is an element of
coercion to any audience involvement, but, by section 2, Taylor Mac
and his ensemble had achieved that alchemy of persuading me to give
in and participate. (Mention must also be quickly made here of Le
Gateau Chocolat's cameo appearance as the interval act – being
hilariously carried by the ensemble from one side of the stage to the
other).
Section 3, in the
pub, turns riotous. After we've been mocked for refusing to join in a
drinking song loudly enough, beer and ping pong balls are distributed
(to my relief I confess I got the beer) and soon the auditorium is
filled with couples spitting the ping pong balls at each other. Nor
does it stop there. A temperance choir (magnificently performed by
members of the London Gay Men's Chorus and friends) get into a
morality duel with Mac, by now centre stage in an inflated flamingo
(no, really). The scene climaxes with sections of the audience
hurling ping pong balls at the choir while the choir retaliate with
water pistols. It's hilarious, and, again, visually remarkable.
Then, in a segment
that does get a little rambling but finally punches home Mac talks
about the mingling at these kind of performances of what he describes as queer and normative communities, and, as on stage he and the
temperance choir come together in a more mutually tolerant relationship, we're
asked to perform that act I mentioned at the opening of comforting
one of our neighbours. In advance, I was very sceptical of the claims
in some of the reviews that the show creates a sense of community –
I was wrong, by this point I was convinced.
There's quite a bit
of politics, jibes at Brexit, at Trump, at the likely impact of
Justice Kennedy's retirement, the US treatment of immigrant children
– but while it is angry, often rebuking, situating it within the
humour enables it to strike home while avoiding that lecturing tone
that can, at least for me, be so fatal in a theatre piece. And Taylor
Mac's final message, delivered on the platform the show has slowly
constructed over the previous three hours, is really powerful. It
gives a sense of the vulnerability of the LGBTQ community,
particularly in the States, in the current moment. But it is not an
exclusionary one – when Mac suggests in this time of Brexit, Trump,
rising populism, a durational performance of this show is a way for
us to check in with each other from time to time to see how we're
doing, and follows it with a beautiful performance of Shenandoah as
the lights slowly dim, it is both a little piece of theatrical magic,
and a gentle reminder of our common humanity, the importance of
looking after one another.
Contrary to all my
advance misgivings, this is a really extraordinary, funny, moving,
unclassifiable piece of theatre. If you missed this short Barbican
run, make a note now to catch Taylor Mac when he returns (hopefully)
with the next episode.
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