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Q&A with 'Cabaret' actor Taylor Mac

	Taylor Mac, center, performs the role of the Emcee in Playmaker’s “Cabaret.” He performed a section of his work, ”The 1780s,” on Monday.

Taylor Mac, center, performs the role of the Emcee in Playmaker’s “Cabaret.” He performed a section of his work, ”The 1780s,” on Monday.

Taylor Mac, who plays the Emcee in PlayMakers Repertory Company’s “Cabaret,” performed a section of his work on popular music — “The 1780s” — Monday at Top of the Hill’s Back Bar.

Staff writer Elizabeth Baker spoke with Mac about his role in “Cabaret,” what people can learn from it and his inspirations.

Daily Tar Heel: What is your goal as an actor and as an artist?

Taylor Mac: I’m always trying to remind the audience of aspects of themselves — things that they’ve forgotten or buried or dismissed. In “Cabaret,” we’re dealing with World War II, the Nazis and our responsibility toward being socially conscious citizens, so that’s what I’m trying to remind them of.

Sometimes we forget that — sometimes we think, “Oh, I just want to go see a funny show.” My job isn’t to teach them, but it’s just to remind them of stuff they’ve forgotten or dismissed.

DTH: Why is it important for you to push the envelope through your performances and theatrical pursuits?

TM: What I think is important is to honor what has come before but to remind people they are in the present moment — so not to get dragged down by what has come before — then to use that information to help bring the culture forward, to inspire the audience to go out into the world and do things, and to make their own world and their own culture.

To surprise people is very important. Sometimes that looks like pushing the envelope. Surprising people opens people up and makes them feel and makes them think about things. I don’t think the theater should be comfortable — I think it should be a dangerous place. But not so dangerous that you go into a coma.

DTH: How do you come up with the elaborate costuming used in your shows?

TM: I grew up in suburbia. In my town there was a real emphasis on everyone fitting in and being the same and looking the same. That also melted into the aesthetics — there was a real homogeneity.

I rebelled against that — I’m rebelling against the homogeneity.

The idea is to create a multifaceted experience for people. The outfits become masculine and feminine, and they become extraordinary and messy and detailed and colorful and bland and ugly and beautiful. They become everything that we are as human beings.

DTH: Can you relate to the Emcee in “Cabaret” in any way, or do you just immerse yourself in his character?

TM: I’m primarily playing him from the perspective of being a cabaret performer myself, and also as somebody who was living at a time and working at a time right after Sept. 11 in New York City.

A lot of our civil liberties were taken away from us, which is very similar to the situation that was happening with the Germans and the cabaret performers during the Weimar Republic era.

I relate to the character a lot and what the character is going through. I say there’s no point in doing “Cabaret” if we’re not going to treat it like a warning as to what can happen to our country.

There are movements in our country that are trying to make everything the same and decide the morality for others and the laws for others that are based on very strict Puritan tradition. That’s not what America’s about.

I mean I’ll just say it flat-out. I think the Tea Party is really horrible and is a great danger to our country. People who are in line with that, who are supporting that and the economic disparity that’s in our country, are part of what was happening in Germany.

We have to fight against that — becoming what the Germans became. I’m trying to help us not go down that road.

DTH: Why do you think the arts are an important aspect of the educational scene at a public liberal arts college like UNC?

TM: Without the arts, there would be no real joy. Creation is a great thing. In America, we are getting away from creating, and we are moving toward shuffling. Our brightest minds are going to universities that are teaching them how to shuffle money, like that’s how to be a successful person.

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We need innovation, and creativity is innovation. We need it. We need to inspire it, we need to teach it, we need to learn it, we need to practice it every single day. That is the way we become a better society and a better culture, and that’s the way you get closer to God. By creating.

Contact the desk editor at arts@dailytarheel.com.