(Terry Teachout, The Wall Street Journal) Mike Daisey is the inventor of his own pigeonhole. He calls himself a “storyteller” and specializes in semi-improvised autobiographical monologues of the kind that made Spalding Gray semifamous. But his “stories” tend to be issue-driven and to have a political edge, which makes them seem more like theatrical journalism than storytelling. In “The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs,” Mr. Daisey’s journalistic side comes to the fore, in part because he had the luck (if that’s the word) to bring his new show to the Public Theater immediately after the death of its subject. Even if Jobs were still alive, this show, in which Mr. Daisey weaves together his experience as a technogeek with the story of a visit that he paid to the Chinese factories in which Apple’s products are assembled, would still have a journalistic feel.
Art News
The Technogeek’s Lament
October 18, 2011