Mike Daisey's "Journalism"

Ladies and gentlemen, Mike Daisey!

Last year I missed Mike Daisey’s The Agony and Ecstasy of Steve Jobs when it was playing at the Public. Being a storyteller myself, I was excited to see a master at work, but at the last moment I decided to skip the two hour train ride into Manhattan and instead work on my M.F.A. thesis, which was due in a month.

And then I lost track of him until a week ago when a friend posted on Facebook “Hey, who wants to go see Mike Daisey’s new show Journalism!” I practically leaped out of my chair, right arm thrust in the air with my left arm contorted over my head to support it and squealed “Me me me!”

Ladies and gentlemen, Waylon Lenk!

The next day I read an interview with Daisey in the  Willamette Week, from which I gleaned two important observations. First, he had been mired in scandal since it came out quite publicly that he had fabricated several events in his Agony/Ecstasy, a piece that had lit a fire under Apple’s belly concerning working conditions in a subcontractor’sChinese factories. Second, I observed that Daisey must have tremendous balls. He quite belligerently tried to focus the interview on how journalists (like the ones who had shamed him) are not objective, even as interviewer Rebecca Jacobson tried to strong-arm him into admitting that fabrication is bad. He got into a flame war in the comments section of a fairly blasé Portland Mercury press release about his new show, which seemed like it was going to stick it to those mean ol’ journalists.

But luck wasn’t on my side Tuesday evening, the night of Journalism’s premiere. I got lost twice on my way to the theater, and arrived late. I snuck into the balcony, and looked down upon Daisey sitting behind a wooden table talking about the Willamette Week interview, trying to set the record straight. It was a bad sign. Or rather two bad signs. First, sitting behind a table for the whole show is a terrible staging choice, especially when that show is based in direct address. It establishes a barrier between you and the audience. Second, it felt lazy, like his battle cry against the journalists who raked him over the coals was written the week before.

That sense of laziness pervaded the entire dramaturgy of the piece. Besides hiding behind a table, Daisey allowed himself to ramble through subjects related to and not related to the field of journalism. I was disappointed. Here’s one of the biggest names in American storytelling with an incredible opportunity to use theater to deconstruct a field and viewpoint that has humiliated him, and all he can bring himself to is rant and ramble. But moments of honesty did manage to slip through, like sunlight through the clouds of insecurity. The most compelling moments in the show were when he allowed himself to show the audience his hurt. But those moments were few and far between. In general, he succumbed to the bravado of “I don’t give a shit what you think of me,” which of course means “I desperately give a shit.” Unfortunately I don’t. I've seen my fair share of storytelling, but I've never seen something this lazy and insincere. I had such high hopes, and I was willing to forgive anything as long as he committed to a choice. But he couldn't seem to decide between battle cry and confession. The result of his indecision was just one big hot mess.