What Mike Daisey Does or Does Not Deserve

One little-known historical fact is that book burning did not originate with the rise of anti-Semitism in Germany during the 1930s. Rather, it's a symptom of tyranny as old as the Bible, occurring over the centuries on every continent. The image of book burning is what many First Amendment advocates call to mind whenever a political, ethnic, or religious group tries, through demagoguery and ideological hectoring, to prevent artists from the sacred act of self-expression.

Thus the bewildered and emotionally charged reaction of popular monologuist Mike Daisey when a group of 80-odd students from California's Norco High School abruptly departed a performance of his work Invincible Summer on April 19 at the American Repertory Theatre in Cambridge, Mass. In theatre circles and the liberal blogosphere, the incident has become a cause célèbre, no doubt because it was captured on video, with more than 117,000 views recorded to date on YouTube.

In the first minute of the tape, Daisey clearly appears thrown off his game. But he doesn't move, sitting quizzically instead, letting things unfold. What infuriates him happens one minute and 11 seconds into the video: A man deliberately pours the contents of a plastic water bottle on Daisey's script, then dumps the bottle into a glass of water on the desk at which Daisey is performing, causing it to overflow. It's a cowardly, malicious, reprehensible act; you can feel Daisey's upset as you hear him, out of the camera's view, beseeching the group to explain not just its departure but why someone felt it necessary to take a metaphorical match to his art.

Initial press reports erroneously suggested this was a Christian group offended by Daisey's language: In the video clip, he is seen using the word "balls" once and "fucking" five times. We now know this was a high school choir -- and that another high school group in the theatre remained. It has also emerged that the person pouring the water was an adult. Talk about a terrible example being set. That man should be ashamed.

Yes, there is also some question as to whether the box office was clear when selling the tickets that Daisey's work contains mature language; certainly, if there was miscommunication on this issue and the adults felt the material was too blue, they had a right, like it or not, to limit the students' access to Daisey's work. But that debate evades the issue: A man felt it within his rights to physically assault Daisey's art.

An essay on Daisey's website talks about how the monologuist called the school and asked to speak with the water pourer, suggesting there could be legal action unless he had the dialogue with the culprit that was so rudely denied him at his performance. This man, Daisey writes, "has three kids -- one is 21, and two are 17 -- and he's terrified of the world. Terrified by violence, and sex, and he sees it all linked together -- a horrifying world filled with darkness, pornography, and filth that threatens his children, has threatened them all his life. They're older now, but he says he still sees things the same way -- and that the only way to protect his children and himself is to lock it all out of his life.

"He also said he's had anger-control issues for years," Daisey adds, "and sometimes acts of rage come over him -- he explodes, and then has to apologize, and doesn't know why it happens. He tries to lock it down, but it happens, and he's ashamed of it. I told him that regardless of where we both stand, I felt very strongly that the repression of walling off everything in the world and viewing it all as filth is connecting with these outbursts, and that it isn't going to work -- until you deal with the root causes, and deal with the world, his anger and rage would keep using him."

Indeed, unless we face that kind of rage together as one nation, our freedom of speech will remain vulnerable.

-- Back Stage Staff

Comments

[nick]

Leonard, you said:
"Initial press reports erroneously suggested this was a Christian group."

I don't think this is true. Although early press reports did quote Mike Daisey's claim that the group was Christian, none I know of suggested this claim was true. What press reports are you referencing here?