At Guthrie, Taylor Mac makes musical history tour a fool's errand

Performer Taylor Mac is a self-described fool — in the court-jester sense of the word.

The fool, he explained, is "the person who is speaking to the court about the court's behavior ... They are actually able to speak more directly to the court about the court's behavior than someone else might be able to, and then the court can actually hear it."

This weekend, Mac brings his show, "A 24-Decade History of Popular Music: The 20th Century Abridged," to the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis. The show suggests alternate histories behind many of the songs we know.

Taylor Mac sings, wears costumes that would put a peacock to shame, and doesn't hold back on his opinions. Take the late 19th century song, "After the Ball is Over."

"This was the most popular song in the 1890s, and is also the worst song in the entire 24-hour concert on the history of popular music," Mac says. "It was the most popular song! It just goes to show you, those songs by Kesha might stick around for a while."

For the last several years Mac has been working on a huge project, examining 24 decades of popular music and dedicating an hour to each. He's bringing what he calls the sampler-plate version to the Guthrie, focusing on songs from the 20th century.

"We approach these songs in a lot of different ways," Mac said. "We deconstruct them, we perform them as they were, to the best of our knowledge, intended to be performed. And then we also do adaptations of them."

With some commentary.

Mac begins the opening verse of "After the Ball is over," which talks about a little girl asking an aging uncle why he is single and childless. Mac pauses at that moment and talks to the audience:

"They didn't call it the Gay '90s for nothing, right? The Gay '90s! We all know why that uncle was single in the 1890s. But he couldn't say that, so he had to make up a story, and here's the story he made up."

"It's a lot of reframing," Mac said of the show. "It's a lot of saying, 'You are used to hearing this song in this context, now let's dig a little bit deeper, and listen to it in a different context.' Because so much of the show is coming from a queer person's perspective of 'I'm not in the history. You haven't allowed us to be in the history,'" he said with a laugh. "So I am going to put myself in the history, because clearly, people like me existed in the past."

A Taylor Mac show is loud, outrageous and thought-provoking. As a part of the "Singular Voices/Plural Perspectives" series at the Guthrie, each show is followed by an audience discussion with the performer.

While there are elements of cabaret in "A 24-Decade History of Popular Music," Mac said the show has deeper theatrical roots in commedia dell'arte, and especially in the tradition of the court jester.

"It pulls from the history of the fool," Mac said. The fool was allowed to comment on the manners of the powerful, Mac explained, because as a person with "a phantasmagorical approach, or because of their outsider status," he could be dismissed.

Mac researches each new community where the show is performed, both at a distance and on the ground, talking to people in the street. The goal is to personalize each performance. Mac also carefully reads the room during a show. If there is something that clearly makes an audience uncomfortable, then that's where Mac wants to go.

For all the hilarity, Taylor Mac has a serious purpose.

"I really want to make works of consequence," Mac said. "I want to make works that people experience ... and they are not the same when they leave as when they came. And that can be in huge ways or small ways, but something has shifted."

Which is why Taylor Mac is happy to be a fool.

"I love it," he laughed. "It's a calling."