MASTER STORYTELLER MIKE DAISEY'S MONOLOGUE ADDS THREE WEEKS TO ITS PUBLIC THEATER RUN

By HENRY EDWARDS

In his new monologue, “The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs,” currently on view in The Public Theater’s Martinson Theater, self-confessed Apple geek Mike Daisey considers how the recently Steve Jobs, the deceased CEO of Apple and Jobs' obsessions shaped our lives, while sharing stories of his own harrowing journey to China to investigate the factories where millions of Chinese workers toil in agony to make iPhones and iPods.

As Daisey puts it, his effort examines "the rise and fall and rise of Apple, industrial design, and the human price we are willing to pay for our technology, woven together in a complex narrative."

In general, rave reviews greeted “The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs" when it opened officially on Oct. 11 (five days after the announcement of Jobs’ death).  Although the show was scheduled to close on Nov. 13, it will now play an additional three weeks. The new closing date is Dec. 4. 

Charles Isherwood of The New York Times labeled Daisey's monologue “a mind-clouding, eye-opening exploration of the moral choices we unknowingly or unthinkingly make when we purchase nifty little gadgets like the iPhone and the iPad and the PowerBook.”

Linda Winer of Newsday concurred, writing:  “Put the muckraking heavy machinery of Michael Moore together with the free-floating storytelling charm of Spalding Gray, and you get pretty close to Mike Daisey's ‘The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs.’ At what fate has just turned into impolite timing, the activist-monologuist landed at the Public Theater with two entertaining and horrifying hours about the suddenly late Jobs.”

The positive critical response once again confirms Daisey's reputation as the contemporary theatre's "master storyteller."