The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs | DISTRACTICON

The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs | DISTRACTICON:

Whatever you think of Jobs, he was too complicated and compelling a person to be boiled down to 400 words of adoration in an Op-Ed piece. Over the past couple of years, monologist Mike Daisey has been writing, workshopping, previewing and preparing The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs, his new monologue currently running at The Public Theater. With only a glass of water and a neat stack of notes, Daisey maintains the audience’s rapt attention for 2 hours as he relates the rise of Apple and Jobs while skillfully weaving in the story of how a blog item about a few test photos from a factory in China that were left on an iPhone made this self-proclaimed Mac Fanboy travel to Foxconn to speak to scores of the hundreds of thousands of employees who piece together the electronic devices we use every day. Incredibly, this thought-provoking show on labor, consumerism and the heartbreak of loving a somewhat sinister genius and his work, is also laugh-out-loud funny.

Daisey’s stage presence and aptitude as an entertainer gives you the feeling that you are listening to your most interesting friend tell you a story you never want to end.