Never mind the stockings -- About Face's 'Young Ladies' is no drag

First, a confession: I'm not a big fan of drag shows and tend to find most attempts at the form puerile and tedious. After all, what is left to say these days beyond the obvious? (True, I haven't yet seen "Wig Out!," the newly acclaimed Off-Broadway hit by Tarell Alvin McCraney, a DePaul Theatre School alum.)

But like Taylor Mac, who has a winking take-it-or-leave-it attitude about his solo drag show, "The Young Ladies Of" (another Off-Broadway hit that received its Chicago premiere Tuesday night at the Center on Halsted in an About Face Theatre production), I've always loved Rodgers and Hammerstein's "Carousel" (particularly the final act's dance scene on a New England beach), and I've always found playwright Samuel Beckett a kindred spirit. And since Mac riffs extensively on "Carousel" in his 75-minute show, and since he also creates a mail-strewn stage landscape worthy of old Beckett, I found myself fairly captivated by his performance. Of course there are times when you just want to scream "enough with the camp," but there also are moments that are compelling and wickedly funny.

Mac arrives onstage looking like some whacked-out Disney princess in distress -- curly blond fright wig, glitter-encrusted face, empire-style dress and fish-net hose (on one shapely leg, at least). He is, in short, the worst nightmare of a son who might be born to a father who is quintessentially macho and military-bred -- a Vietnam vet with deep roots in a conservative Texas farm family. Never mind that his dad, Robert Mac Bowyer, died at age 34 (drunk and riding a motorcycle) when Taylor was still a kid. The son still is desperate to imagine the father and craves the man's love and acceptance (which, he imagines, might well have been withheld). All in all, Taylor is not that different from the girl in "Carousel" who was so desperate to know her dead father, Billy Bigelow, the abusive guy her mother married, who gets to visit Earth for a single day to try and "make things right."

The story is set in full motion when Taylor's mother sends him a veritable avalanche of letters his father received during his stint in Vietnam-- the result of the advertisement he placed in an Australian tabloid in an attempt to attract female correspondence and more while in the war zone. The women's hunger for love, even from the most remote stranger, becomes a sort of crazy tsunami of emotion, as each and every one of them pours her heart out to a guy who clearly is playing by the numbers.

Remounted for About Face Theatre by Bonnie Metzgar, the company's newly arrived artistic director -- with an envelope-strewn set by Courtney O'Neill that conjures a quasi-Beckettian world -- "The Young Ladies Of ... " is drag with a difference.

NOTE: To commemorate the 10th anniversary of the murder of gay college student Matthew Shepard, About Face will stage a one-night benefit reading of Moises Kaufman's docudrama "The Laramie Project." It will feature an all-star Chicago cast including Tony Award-winner Deanna Dunagan, Kyle Hall, Ora Jones, Patricia Kane, Keith Kupferer, Amy Matheny, Kelli Simpkins and Phil Smith. The reading, at 7 p.m. Monday, will be at the Center on Halsted. Tickets are $75. Phone: (773) 784-8565.