Mike Daisey

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More About

• Mike Daisey
• Thomas Edison
• Nikola Tesla
• Brooklyn
• John Longenbaugh

Mike Daisey possesses a singular skill that suits his profession to a T: He can talk about himself at great length with great charm, without seeming self-absorbed. While others might parlay this skill into little more than entertaining at family gatherings, Daisey’s made it the backbone of his performance career, crafting a series of monologues that pretend to deal with such eclectic subjects as eccentric geniuses, Amazon.com, America’s nuclear industry, and the death of American theater, while actually being about how these subjects affect his life and fascinate his cynically playful eye. Daisey, who honed his craft here for over a decade, has performed most of his pieces in Seattle, save one: Invincible Summer, a monologue chronicling his move to New York in 2001, his eyewitness account of 9/11, and its aftermath. When I last asked him about the piece, he admitted that he’s often asked by Seattleites when he’s going to stage it here, and that some of them seem weirdly resentful that they’ve been denied the chance to round out the Daisey canon. Well, Daiseyphiles, now’s your chance, though you’ll have to cross the lake to hear what happened when the big guy made the jump from our little burg to the dark bohemian underground of Brooklyn. (On Friday, Daisey offers Monopoly!, about Nikola Tesla, Thomas Edison, and the Parker Brothers board game.) JOHN LONGENBAUGH
Fri., Jan. 30, 8 p.m.; Sat., Jan. 31, 8 p.m., 2009