Lifetime's short now.: I went home and did just what he said I'd do.:
Last night I saw Mike Daisey perform his newest show, How Theater Failed America. If you don't know about him you may still have heard or read him, as he is not only an actor, writer, and fat man who sits at a table, he is also a commentator for NPR and writes for several magazines. I had seen him previously in his break-out 21 Dog Years At Amazon.com ten years ago so I knew what to expect: a sweaty fat man sitting at a table that you cannot take your eyes off of. Talking. Just...talking. And drinking water.
The basic premise of the show is the imminent economic failure of regional theater, which is largely uninteresting to anyone outside of theater and a terrifying white elephant to anyone inside of it. It tells nothing new. Most art does not tell a new story.
However, it struck me, and I had, at the end, one of those tunnel vision moments at the end, where he is speaking only to me, looking only at me, as though hundreds of other people were not present and we were alone together in the dark. He had spoken about being saved by work, nothing but work. Art, starvation, nothing but ramen for months, but it gave him life. And then he said, Go. Go do this work. Be as luminous as I know you are, as you know you are, because this is not political commentary or a failing industry but the only thing that will give you life. Go, work, and Godspeed.
6:27 PM
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