Sunday, December 13, 2009

Next for Mike Daisey: Insanity and Exhaustion - Playblog:

The explosively funny monologist Mike Daisey was working The Public Theater last fall, performing his Homeland Security send-up, If You See Something, Say Something, when the economy took that long, agonizing nosedive into the toilet, setting him off on another raging routine. The result is The Last Cargo Cult, and he is premiering it appropriately (through Dec. 13), at The Public.

“All together, counting previews, that’s about two weeks,” Daisey said of the Public gig. “There was the desire to create something that was An Event — that was event-driven so that it happened and then it’s gone. With our schedule and The Public’s schedule — this was the marriage that makes the most sense. I think everybody wants it to run longer, but then again — Barnum always said you should leave while people want more.”

It is gone, then? No. Specifically, it’s “heading for the Wooly Mammoth Theatre in Washington, D.C., the Alliance Theatre in Atlanta, the Victory Gardens Theatre in Chicago and it’s going to tour Ireland and throughout the U.K. I’m of Irish descent, but I’ve never been there.”