In recent times, there has been a glut of queer art intent on saying absolutely nothing about queerness itself. Keith Haring works sit indiscriminately on T-shirts and rugs peddled by squillion-dollar companies; precocious young gays smooch in schmaltzy romcoms and Netflix series aestheticised to the high heavens and shorn of anything resembling the arcane or the antic; anything which could threaten their lucrative appeal. We are living through the golden age of pinkwashing – where, despite ongoing waves of anti-LGBT violence around the world, queerness has successfully ingratiated itself into the pockets of the cultural elite to become that most dreaded thing: sellable. What might radical queer art look like now?
Taylor Mac has an answer. In the program notes to new show Bark of Millions, the 50-year-old polymath – performer, playwright, director, seminal and eternally prolific figure of queer New York – finds value in mystery. “I want to wonder on queerness rather than decide and tell others what it is,” Mac writes, before lamenting the unfortunate reality of the arts industry and its overlapping demands from marketing teams, audiences, and – god forbid – time-poor critics desperate to ascribe meaning where none exists.
Mac, perhaps, needn’t have worried. Bark of Millions is so extravagant, so splendidly oracular, that even the most facile reviewer would have difficulty diminishing its scale. In plain terms, it is part opera, part musical theatre – and part revue, variety show, open mic night, kumbaya circle, and ritualistic offering. It encompasses the minutiae of existence – the trivial indignities and triumphs which comprise a day – as well as the entire weight of queer history. Over 55 songs (one for each year since the Stonewall riots) Mac, together with a 22-strong ensemble including a full band led by co-creator and musical collaborator Matt Ray, pay homage to queer figures both celebrated and obscure.
In all its overflowing maximalism, Bark of Millions feels like a spiritual successor to the work that made Mac a superstar: A 24-Decade History of Popular Music, the 2016 epic (recently immortalised in an HBO documentary) which exhumed and camped up the American songbook from 1776 to current times – a single decade an hour over one sleepless day and night. The Guardian awarded it five stars during its original run, then again when it landed in Australia; Wesley Morris called it “one of the great experiences of my life”. Bark of Millions would be a gargantuan undertaking for any other theatre-maker, but clocking in at a measly four hours, it must be a cakewalk for Mac.
And the clock ticks by with alarming speed. This is a pacy production, with nary a break between most songs for either performer or audience to catch their breath. The opening number sets the tone: a winding ode to the genderless Egyptian deity Atum, whose mythology gives Bark of Millions its title. Equally esoteric are the characters peppered throughout the show: Prosymnus, a tragic shepherd of ancient Greek lore; Felix Yusupov, the young Russian dandy who assassinated Rasputin; Tu’er Shen, the Chinese rabbit god of gay sex.
Bark of Millions is not, however, a history lesson – as one ensemble member disclaims early on. It is a “perverse conversion therapy session” with the aim to make straight theatregoers queer and queer theatregoers queerer. Presumably most of us are in the latter camp: I spied two separate audience members in the row before me scrolling through Grindr pre-show, and many more are appropriately bedazzled, glitter snaking up their faces. We are eager participants in this indoctrination, which unfolds in an orgiastic feast of splayed limbs and shimmying buttocks, oceans of tulle and an endless bounty of phallic objects.
To try to discern the exact subject of each song is a futile task. Bark of Millions all but demands you give into pure pleasure: earthly delights rather than intellectual. Unlike 24-Decade History, which filtered centuries of music through its star, this production sees Mac mostly ceding the floor to the ensemble. There are moments where you miss Mac’s witty, expository repartee, but there’s no time to linger – not when each sense is bombarded, at all times, from all angles, with the force of sheer spectacle.
Every cast member receives their dues, from the magnetic Nigerian-British drag queen Le Gateau Chocolat, whose sonorous bass booms across the room, to the fantastical Machine Dazzle, Mac’s longtime costume designer who appears on stage like a varsity Santa (don’t ask) and then a gay banana. In one of the show’s highlights, electric guitarist Viva DeConcini emerges from the edges, shredding so infernally that the rafters of the hallowed concert hall might just combust.
Of course, it all builds towards a teary, bombastic conclusion. But beneath the sprawl and the volume, it’s a line at the show’s centre, accompanied by a single folksy guitar, that really resonates: “Why are the queer always nuts?”
Bark of Millions was staged as part of the Sydney Opera House’s 50th birthday celebrations. US dates are yet to be announced.
