COMEDY : Mark Craig Taylor Is Psyched for the Stage

Will the real Mark Craig Taylor please stand up?

Is it the nerd who thinks he’s a lady-killer?

Or is it the self-important pop psychologist?

Or how about the Mexican-American homeboy with an attitude?

The answer, as audiences at Comedy Land in Anaheim’s Pan Pacific Hotel will see Friday and Saturday night, is all of the above.

On stage, Taylor undergoes more personality changes than Joanne Woodward in “The Three Faces of Eve.” That’s altogether fitting for a comic who received a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Yale and later worked in a psychiatric ward.

As a comedian, the San Jose native uses his backgrounds in both psychology and acting to create an act featuring several characters whose appearances he intersperses with his own more conventional stand-up comic persona.

A look at human behavior underlies much of his act.

“In terms of content, more and more I’m getting into the psychology of people,” Taylor said over the phone from his home in Los Angeles recently. He sees his comedy as a “celebration of human behavior. I’m looking at people and trying to figure out why we do what we do.”

Stylistically, Taylor said, he enjoys doing a lot of characters, but how many he does depends on the club and the audience. “Some rooms I do more than others, some nights more than others,” he said. When the occasion calls for it, he added, “It’s just me; I stand and do my monologue. But when I do (the characters), I think my style gets closer to what you see a Billy Crystal do. In a sense, I hit a character and hold onto it for five or 10 minutes.

“Most comics just do talking-head monologues, and I guess what I do is a little more theatrical. I think it’s more fun for the audience to see something different that way.”

Taylor generally does four or five characters in his act, but we’re not talking major costume changes here: He’ll do something with his hair, put on glasses, pull his shirt-tail out (or tuck it in), put on a sweater, and alter his voice and posture--”just little things to suggest a different persona.”

One character Taylor no longer does is Plastic Man, a role he played in the late ‘80s as host of the syndicated animated cartoon show “The Plastic Man Comedy Adventure Show.” In a bit of casting that’s closer to home, he stars as a stand-up comic in “Hard Act to Follow,” a recently completed independent film that has not yet found a distributor.

In his act, Taylor, who describes himself as “half Mexican,” often discusses his Latino origins: “I get into the melting pot aspect of America. Unfortunately, I think most ethnic humor today is simply reinforcing the same old stereotypes. That’s where most people get their laughs. What I try to do is talk about the commonalities, the unifying aspects of different people and not the things that make us different.”

With his hair combed back and speaking in a heavy Latino homeboy accent, Taylor says: “They call us low riders, but why? Sports cars are just as low. In fact, a rich yuppie in a Porsche is just a low rider with crappy leg room.”

He also makes a point about the people who put down as silly the Mexican-Americans who have fluff on their dashboards: “People of more Anglo background put fluffy stuff on their toilets. . . . Why is fluff in one place cool and in another place stupid?”

Explains Taylor: “I’m trying to show some of the silliness of both sides. . . . I’m trying to say, ‘Hey, we’re not so different.’ ”

Who: Mark Craig Taylor.

When: Friday, Jan. 31, and Saturday, Feb. 1, at 8:30 and 10:30 p.m.

Where: Comedy Land at the Pan Pacific Hotel, 1717 S. West St., Anaheim.

Whereabouts: Take the Katella exit off the Santa Ana (5) Freeway and go west. The Pan Pacific Hotel is next to the Disneyland Hotel.

Wherewithal: $5.

Where to Call: (714) 979-5653.