Doggedly searching for the crux of the biscuit.
Monologuist Mike Daisey on Thursday's performance of his one man show at the American Repertory Theatre:
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.
I'm still dealing with all the ramifications, but here's what it felt like from my end: I am performing the show to a packed house, when suddenly the lights start coming up in the house as a flood of people start walking down the aisles--they looked like a flock of birds who'd been startled, the way they all moved so quickly, and at the same moment...it was shocking, to see them surging down the aisles. The show halted as they fled, and at this moment a member of their group strode up to the table, stood looking down on me and poured water all over the outline, drenching everything in a kind of anti-baptism.
Video of the incident is at the link there and is really something to behold. Oddly, what seemed to set them off had nothing whatsoever to do with Christianity, but just the word "fucking".
I think the clear response is to do a fucking monologue (er, a monologue about fucking) in the middle of their church one Sunday. Or is that antagonistic of me?
Posted by: Robust McManlyPants at April 23, 2007 05:55 PMpansies. jesus would have doused the demon w/ holy water, and then smote his flaming corpse with a flaminger sword.
Posted by: matty at April 23, 2007 08:49 PMDoesn't he have a copy of the outline on a computer or something?
Posted by: Gaijin Biker at April 23, 2007 09:14 PMHe has the performance on videotape so presumably can reconstruct the outline. His notes were all handwritten and were modified from night to night.
Posted by: Clownæsthesiologist at April 23, 2007 09:26 PMapo, you've got a typo in his name - Daisey.
I can imagine Daisey's shock at the assault/walkout and impressed with his recovery, but it doesn't seem that anyone really knows what the walkout was all about or who the people were. In an article at Playbill, Daisey himself seems to think it was spontaneous.
Largely civil, though still shocking - and probably good for attendance at his future shows.
Posted by: TokyoTom at April 23, 2007 10:39 PMDoesn't the female table-wiper kinda look like Tina Fey?
And if the numbers weren't so large, I'd suspect we were being Kaufmaned.
Posted by: M/tch M/lls at April 23, 2007 11:30 PMI have to agree with TokyoTom that it seemed mostly civil (aside from the baptism part), and that his future shows will probably see bigger crowds because of this incident. Of course, that doesn't excuse the behavior, but there's likely to be a silver lining.
As an aside, I've never been in the Zero Arrow Theatre (which just opened), but back in the day I was in a number of shows at the ART. Mostly in the Black Box, but I did do one show on the Main Stage. Oh yeah, back in the early 90's I was so the man.
Posted by: NCProsecutor at April 24, 2007 09:50 AM6: 87 people at once is either a planned protest walkout or a class group (maybe more than one) getting yanked out by its chaperone. My guess is the latter.
Posted by: Doctor Slack at April 24, 2007 01:41 PM