“Bark of Millions” is a concert of fifty-five original songs, each inspired by a queer figure in history, put together by the same team that produced the once-in-a-generation “A 24-Decade History of Popular Music”: The extraordinary theater artist Taylor Mac directs, performs and supplies the lyrics; Matt Ray composed the music; the “maximalist” costume designer Machine Dazzle decks out the 22 performers and musicians in dazzling drag.
Is ”Bark of Millions” as astonishing as “A 24-Decade History”?
Well, unlike that 24-hour extravaganza, “Bark of Millions” has a running time of a mere four hours and 20 minutes, with no intermission. (Audience members are given permission to leave and reenter at will.) If you do the math, that allots little more than four minutes to each song – so, no time for the same kind of entertaining between-song patter and elucidating exposition. Nor is there the clarity that comes from the chronological unfolding of history; the new show is in no discernible order.
But, yes, “Bark of Millions” is astonishing in many ways – not least because of the breadth and virtuosity of Ray’s music melded to Mac’s words, and ambition.
The songs — named after mostly obscure figures from the past (such as Felix Yusupov, a Russian nobleman who assassinated Rasputin), but also some godlike personages (Leonardo Da Vinci, Sappho, Florence Nightingale); and a few who are both obscure and literal gods (Tu’er Shen, a Chinese deity who manages love and sex between men) — flit from heavy metal to jazz to folk to light Italian opera to musical styles I couldn’t even identify.
Some of the inspiration for the music and lyrics of a particular song is direct: The ballad “Greta Garbo” (was she queer?!), sung by Machine Dazzle in fiery red, features the lyrics “I want to be alone. With you.” A song inflected with the rhythms of Latin America, sung gorgeously in Spanish by El Beh and Sean Donovan, is named “Chavela Vargas,” a Costa Rican-born singer especially known for her rendition of Mexican rancheras.
But the match of historical figure with musical style and lyrics is more often oblique and poetic. “Larry Kramer” is a full-out rock song, complete Viva DeConcini’s screaming electric guitar, assaultive strobe lights, and lyrics such as “larry kramer is face crack knee slap. not from the wack of the funny bone…but the l.o.v.v.v.v.v.v.v.v.e.”
Although Taylor Mac’s influence is unmistakeable, and as soloist backed by the ensemble both begins and ends the show, “Bark of Millions” is a showcase for the entire talented cast, both collectively and individually.
Thornetta Davis is a gospel and blues powerhouse on five songs, including “William Little Axe Broadnax” (a gospel singer), “William Dorsey Swann” (a 19th century drag queen); in a duet with drummer Bernice “Boom Boom” Brooks on “Lorraine Hansberry and Nina Simone”; and most amazingly on “BDB Women” (which stands for Bull Dyke Blues.)
Steffanie Christi’an sings in five of the songs, including “Sapho and Amazonians” (with the ensemble as the Amazonians) and the soloist on “Nzingha Mbande,” named after a 17th century African queen. (“Forty years in sovereignty/ Beating slaver Portuguese./ You’re the only one, Mbande, I’d let ever conquer me….”)
Wes Olivier’s six songs includes “Nainknum Khnumhotep,” the name of two royal servants in ancient Egypt, who, judging from the paintings of their embracing, may have been male lovers. (“Holding hands through centuries…Bury we together.”)
It’s clear that the creative team has worked hard, researched well, thought deeply, and brought both erudition and spiritual weight to this labor of queer love. But, as I’ve noticed in much of the inventive theater that Taylor Mac has spearheaded, none of this is spoonfed. (I did my own Googling of Nzingha Mbande and Nainknum Khnumhotep, etc.)
In a program note, Mac admits to a penchant for what one might consider withholding. “Increasingly I find myself interested in mystery. Especially when it comes to queerness (and art). I want to wonder on queerness rather than decide and tell others what it is.” But in a show of graciousness, Mac does make a concession to marketing teams and critics, by explaining, for example, that there are fifty five songs, because there is one for each year since the Stonewall Riots gave birth to the modern LGBT rights movement. And we are told that the banner that hangs over the stage at the beginning at the end of the show is the phrase Bark of Millions “as translated into Damiá, a fully-functioning queer gender-free language with a vocabulary of 10,000 words created by Aslan, a Berlin-based writer and artist.”
In the past, I might have viewed such esoteria, and the running time of “Bark of Millions” as part of Mac’s effort to épater le bourgeois, or at least nettle us. (“I want you to feel uncomfortable,” Mac said from the stage in 2015, which I quoted in an article I wrote in HowlRound entitled “Audience Participation: Do Taylor Mac et al Tickle or Terrify?”) But either I or Mac have mellowed in the nine years since; maybe both of us. Something extraordinary happened with each passing hour of “Bark of Millions,” which is at BAM only through February 10th. My resistance didn’t just break down; I didn’t just like it more and more. I started to feel a part of it; the performers seemed to form into community, as one with the audience.
Bark of Millions
BAM’s Harvey Theater through February 10
Running time: four hours and 20 minutes with no intermission.
Tickets: $137 – $170
Lyrics and direction by Taylor Mac
Music and musical direction by Matt Ray
Co-directed by Niegel Smith
Co-directed and choreography by Faye Driscoll
Costume design by Machine Dazzle
Lighting design by John Torres
Sound design by Brendan Aanes
Art Direction by Matthew Buttrey
Props Design by Oscar Escobedo & Zach Blumner
Cast: Ari Folman-Cohen, Bernice “Boom Boom” Brooks, Chris Giarmo, Dana Lyn, El Beh, Greg Glassman, Jack Fuller (Vocal Captain), Joel E. Mateo, Jules Skloot, Le Gateau Chocolat, Lisa “Paz” Parrott, Machine Dazzle, Mama Alto, Marika Hughes, Matt Ray, Sean Donovan (Associate Choreographer), Steffanie Christi’an, Stephen Quinn, Taylor Mac, Thornetta Davis, Viva DeConcini, Wes Olivier
Photographs by Julieta Cervantes
