Following a long standing tradition, Mike Daisey brings his newest work in development to Woolly’s stage Sunday night, July 29 at 7pm. Daisey, now on Woolly’s main stage with The Agony and The Ecstasy of Steve Jobs, takes time out from his performance schedule to do a one night only workshop performance of The Orient Express (Or, the Value of Failure).
Taken, as are all his monologues, from his life, this examination of failure comes about as a result of the scandal which erupted over the public revelation that Daisey did not, as he originally claimed in his show and on “This American Life”, actually witness all scenes in The Agony and Ecstasy. Daisey has removed those portions from the play now being performed.
From Woolly’s July 20th press release: “When people undergo a scandal the likes of which Mike went through, we are used to seeing them swathed in a cloak of public relations spin, if not completely disappearing from the public sphere,” says Woolly Artistic Director, Howard Shalwitz. “Instead, Mike dives right into it, bringing his artistry to his predicament. With his trademark humor and thoughtfulness, Mike deftly weaves together the story of his travels through Europe with a deeply personal and highly vulnerable self-analysis. For long-time fans of Mike Daisey, this is the bravest and most revealing they will see him on stage.”
The show’s description: “To escape scandal, Mike Daisey impulsively decides to recreate the Orient Express by traveling from London to Istanbul by rail. From an English village out of time to the glorious minarets of Istanbul, from the ghosts of the Berlin Wall to the broken statues and secret police of Budapest’s recent past, Daisey draws out the hidden heart of failure, and how stories, myths, lies, and legends are the way we tell ourselves who we are. From the end of communism to the triumph of corporatism, Daisey walks the borderlands of fact and fiction, wrestling with what failure can teach him, and us, on the long, strange road East.”
Tickets to this performance are free, and can be reserved through the Woolly Mammoth Box Office at 202-393-3939, online, or in person at 641 D Street, NW (7th & D). Best to reserve early. This will likely sell out.
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