Well, I’m thrilled to report that the group that walked out of Mike Daisey’s show at the ART was from out-of-town. Haha, I know that really makes no difference at all, but I do find it somehow comforting.
Turns out they were a high school group — a choir from a public high school performing in Boston. It’s interesting that members of the group identify themselves as a Christian group when they were from a public school. And the walkout was not planned in advance, really.
Well, heck, just read the excellent summary by Playbill or read the long version on Daisey’s blog in which he details the follow-up phone call he had with the water-pouring vandal.
Make sure to read the part about it being a “security issue”. Sends chills down my spine.
Daniel MacIvor posted tonight about a bizarre happening at a performance of Mike Daisey’s critically-acclaimed monologue Invincible Summer. But it wasn’t till I read the story that I remembered they guy was performing in town at the American Repertory Theatre!
According to the performer himself:
Last night’s performance of INVINCIBLE SUMMER was disrupted when eighty seven members of a Christian group walked out of the show en masse, and chose to physically attack my work by pouring water on and destroying the original of the show outline.
Daisey had just finished a joke about hypothetically having sex with Paris Hilton when the exodus occurred. Apparently, the collective objection was to the language Daisey used. Note that Daisey performs his extemporaneous monologues from hand written notes, so this was not merely a non-violent (if disruptive) gesture. It was an aggressive, destructive act.
I am just flummoxed. What kind of an impact is this meant to make in Cambridge, of all places? And is it just me, or is all the strange Patriot Act, media-is-destroying-our-children, Janet-Jackson-has-breasts stuff turning the more judgmental of our society into self-righteous vigilantes?
Read more about this crazy event on the ART blog and Mike Daisey’s own blog. (Same text in both places.) Or just watch the insanity unfold before your eyes here…
I intend to secure tickets to, if not this show which runs through next weekend, Mike Daisey’s Monopoly, which runs the following week. Let me know if you want to go too.
I just found out (not that I asked) that Kathy Lee Gifford wrote the book and lyrics to a rather insipid-sounding Off-Broadway musical, Under the Bridge. Whoda thunk it?
I’m not about to buy the cast album and I hope no one ever subjects me to its contents. But I do like saying “Kathy Lee Gifford’s Under the Bridge!!!” and I hope to slip it into conversation for a while. Frequently.
