We Interview: Mike Daisey, About His Monopoly On Funny, Fiery Monologues

You’re also doing a show called How Theater Failed America at CHAC this February.

It’s somewhere between a manifesto and a simple assessment of the state of things today. It’s about the rise and fall of the regional theater system in America, and the failure of that system and the artists in that system to fulfill the promise they made a generation earlier – that theater could be a transformative force in America. Content is not the issue so much as the choices made by artists and arts administrators about how they’re going to do their art form. I point a finger squarely at that decision made by arts administrators to get rid of repertory companies of actors, who actually lived at and were supported by large regional theaters. That’s one of the significant reasons why theaters failed to make a difference in our culture. Theater all over the country has become incredibly New York-centric, based of this one city. From this one city, everyone’s being flown out to do regional productions and then flown back. That’s a sickness. It doesn’t speak to the strength of the country, and it leads to an anemic theater that’s out of touch with the concerns of the actual people in each region.

You’re very funny onstage, but getting angry is a key element, too. What’s the role of anger in your work?

A monologue is an interesting form because your job is to remove as many boundaries as possible between yourself and the audience. It’s an attempt to create as unmediated a space as you possibly can, and try to be truly present when you’re talking. One of the consequences of that is people become more themselves when they perform – those elements that are central, integral to them are heightened. They’re what resonate, and I’m very angry. So that becomes a palpable thread through most of my pieces. I think that a lot of my pieces are informed by my rage at different things, the state of things, things that should change or have to change or which I know will never change, the efforts and sacrifices people make to effect change. So the anger fuels and drives a lot of the work. It’s the impetus for a lot of the monologues. If I didn’t have it, I don’t know that I would practice the form. Certainly I wouldn’t in the way that I do now, because it motivates me, to find things that I feel passionately about. It’s the fire underneath things.

There’s an emotional commitment to getting that upset in public.

Yeah. It’s rarely seen. You rarely see people upset or angry in a way that’s constructive. If the structure of the monologue is well-built, and the anger can be used to further the ends you’re interested in, it can be very compelling. Not just dramaturgically, but as a model, where we don’t get to see people model that behavior very often in a way that’s productive. Generally when you see people lose their shit, it’s not their finest hour. It’s empowering to see people experience strong, genuine emotions onstage. The form lends itself to that, to generating intense emotions.

What’s your research and development process?

It really depends on the monologue. For both Monopoly! and How Theater Failed America, I did an enormous amount of reading. I spend a lot of time in conversations with people, especially people who will be charged in some way. I try to seek out people to talk to who will have conversations that matter, though the conversations pretty much never find their way into the work itself – in a direct way – but the process of having those conversations helps gestate the interesting elements that are in the shows. Sometimes there’s video to watch. I’m absorbing things from a lot of different directions. Then I make an outline right before the first performance. After that, my wife and director, Jean-Michele Gregory, and I spend a lot of time poring over it, methodically honing it. We usually have about three 4-hour notes sessions after each performance, pruning things that don’t fit, helping it assume a form. I’m doing How Theater Failed America for the very first time this Sunday, so I haven’t built it yet. The next time it’s spoken will be at CHAC, where we’re going to do a lot of the refining work on it. Then it’ll run off-Broadway at the Public Theater in April and May.

We feel your blog has a lot of photos for someone who makes his living talking. What’s up with that?

It’s sort of an experiment that’s been going on for some time. Originally when I started the site it was more traditional blog. It’s evolved over time, it’s been in its current form for a year or two. I don’t dictate how the site works, it’s a thing that’s open-ended, and so what I use it for right now is a repository for articles and images I find when I’m surfing around the web. Then that serves as a public record, and also a private record, because I can find the images I need for my work at my site. It seemed interesting to have it be an open notebook. It’s intended for me, but it’s also visible to other people. I know why the images are there, so I don’t need to explain them. And they tend to be compelling, so I wouldn’t have much to add. I also like the way the images sit next to each other; I tend to put them together in combinations that later as I scroll through them. The last reason for the images is that doing commentary is my job, so one of the purposes of the blog was to be a hobby, an adjunct to the rest of this work. [laughs] I have lots of outlets for the things I want to talk about.