Mike Daisey @ CHAC

It was a one-night-only monologue, Mike Daisey's Stories from the Atlantic Night Cafe, and CHAC artistic director Matthew Kwatinetz was happily rearranging chairs for a packed house. Backstage, the program informed us, Daisey was taking an hour to scribble away on a yellow legal pad the outline for what would be a brand-new 90-minute-ish monologue, his delivery punctuated only by pauses as he sipped from a glass of water or glared at remembered insults and injuries.

His topics were the mythical Judy (or Rebecca) in HR (the one with the cat calendar), the process of film auditions, the kinds of auditions someone his size gets called for ("We need a taco repairman!"), self-obstructive behavior, father-figures, cancer, a catastrophic car accident, his begrudging perspective on fatherhood and children ("like a horde of little Mongols appearing over the horizon"), long-distance relationships, that noise fan belts make, his weight, sitting shiva, working marriages, and his sister's birthday party at the Canterbury on 15th.

If it was autobiographical, it's also from a skewed, frequently self-skewering perspective. In Daisey's version a reviewer thinks, "The fat man is amazingly flexible," while a review in the San Francisco Chronicle actually said, "A large man of unstoppable energy, he’s a fast, inventive, exceptionally funny storyteller with crisp comic timing and an amazingly flexible voice." (Here's video from his younger, Seattle-sketch-comedy days.)

What sounds like it has "the air of a stunt," turned out to be less like Evel Knievel's Snake River Canyon rocket jump, and more like musical improvisation. Daisey had a theme to riff on (the "golden variable" that enlivens life), some power chords (the emotional explosions behind the face's mask), and a rhythm section made up of sex and death.

In the end, Daisey testified, it's about getting it all out, not masking but letting people see or hear what's inside, no matter how difficult that may seem. Who knows, it may be hilarious, your drunken, gremliny glee at reprogramming unattended cell phones. Or, if the loss of a loved one chokes you up, take a sip of water, and keep going. (Oh *sniff*, said the audience, and stood and clapped.)

Speaking of hordes of little Mongols on the horizon, Daisey's off to Hawaii now, but he's back in Seattle on Sunday, February 18, for a memoir-ish workshop: "Participants will investigate their own lives to find our own true tales. We will uncover what makes our stories unique, what makes them true, and how to tell them so they illuminate the world beyond ourselves."

Performing Your Life
CHAC
Sunday, February 18, noon to 6pm
Tickets: $100/participant