Master storyteller Mike Daisey’s one-man-show “The Agony and The Ecstasy of Steve Jobs” is a theater piece that every Apple fan should see.
It’s a laugh-out-loud monologue about the world of Apple, but it delivers an important message: The products we love are made under inhumane conditions.
Daisey’s show opened last night for a four-week run at the Berkeley Repertory Theatre (Sunday, January 23 through February 27).
Daisey totally nails what it is to be an Apple fan. But then he visits China to find out how the devices he loves are made, and confronts an uncomfortable truth — they are made in sweatshop conditions, frequently by children.
Daisey visited China last year to gather material for the show. During his monologue, he describes (hilariously) how he got to talk to lots of workers at Apple’s factories. But the stories they told him weren’t so funny. He talked to kids who were as young as 11 who worked 16 hour days, assembling iPhones and iPads by hand. One worker mangled his hand on the iPad line, but didn’t receive medical treatment for his injuries. He went back to work making iPads but was fired for being slow.
Daisey discovers that a lot of Apple’s products are made by hand — because human labor in China is a lot cheaper than building machines. But the humans are treated inhumanely — witness the rash of suicides at the plant.
“We exported our jobs to China,” said Daisey after the packed, opening-night show. “But we didn’t export our values.”
Daisey’s show would be unpalatable if it wasn’t so funny. It’s a roller-coaster ride. He takes the audience up with funny observations about Apple and Steve Jobs, and then delivers some uncomfortable truths about the modern industrial system that is largely invisible to consumers outside Asia.
I laughed my head off for two hours, but I left feeling ashamed to turn my iPhone back on.
The show is highly recommended. If you’re coming to Macworld this week, head across the Bay to Berkeley (it’s an easy BART ride) and check out Daisey’s show. It’s an eye-opener.
The show is unapologetically polemical: Daisey is calling on Apple as an industry leader to improve working conditions at its Chinese subcontractors. An anti-sweatshop stance (somewhat) worked for Nike, now it’s Apple’s turn. If the company can get green in response to consumer demand, the same should be true for the treatment of its assembly-line workforce.
Daisey has been working as a professional monologist for more than ten years. He knows how to put on a good show. My wife and I were a little trepidatious about sitting through his two-hour performance, but as my wife bluntly told Daisey afterwards: “I thought it would suck, but it didn’t.”
Mike Daisey’s “The Agony and The Ecstasy of Steve Jobs” runs at the Berkeley Repertory Theatre through February 27.
Leander Kahney is the editor and publisher of Cult of Mac.
Leander is a longtime technology reporter and the author of six acclaimed books about Apple, including two New York Times bestsellers: Jony Ive: The Genius Behind Apple’s Greatest Products and Inside Steve’s Brain, a biography of Steve Jobs.
He’s also written a top-selling biography of Apple CEO Tim Cook and authored Cult of Mac and Cult of iPod, which both won prestigious design awards. Most recently, he was co-author of Cult of Mac, 2nd Edition.
Leander has been reporting about Apple and technology for nearly 30 years.
Before founding Cult of Mac as an independent publication, Leander was news editor at Wired.com, where he was responsible for the day-to-day running of the Wired.com website. He headed up a team of six section editors, a dozen reporters and a large pool of freelancers. Together the team produced a daily digest of stories about the impact of science and technology, and won several awards, including several Webby Awards, 2X Knight-Batten Awards for Innovation in Journalism and the 2010 MIN (Magazine Industry Newsletter) award for best blog, among others.
Before being promoted to news editor, Leander was Wired.com’s senior reporter, primarily covering Apple. During that time, Leander published a ton of scoops, including the first in-depth report about the development of the iPod. Leander attended almost every keynote speech and special product launch presented by Steve Jobs, including the historic launches of the iPhone and iPad. He also reported from almost every Macworld Expo in the late ’90s and early ‘2000s, including, sadly, the last shows in Boston, San Francisco and Tokyo. His reporting for Wired.com formed the basis of the first Cult of Mac book, and subsequently this website.
Before joining Wired, Leander was a senior reporter at the legendary MacWeek, the storied and long-running weekly that documented Apple and its community in the 1980s and ’90s.
Leander has written for Wired magazine (including the Issue 16.04 cover story about Steve Jobs’ leadership at Apple, entitled Evil/Genius), Scientific American, The Guardian, The Observer, The San Francisco Chronicle and many other publications.
Leander is an expert on:
Apple and Apple history
Steve Jobs, Jony Ive, Tim Cook and Apple leadership
Apple community
iPhone and iOS
iPad and iPadOS
Mac and macOS
Apple Watch and watchOS
Apple TV and tvOS
AirPods
Leander has a postgrad diploma in artificial intelligence from the University of Aberdeen, and a BSc (Hons) in experimental psychology from the University of Sussex.
He has a diploma in journalism from the UK’s National Council for the Training of Journalists.
Leander lives in San Francisco, California, and is married with four children. He’s an avid biker and has ridden in many long-distance bike events, including California’s legendary Death Ride.
You can find out more about Leander on LinkedIn and Facebook. You can follow him on X at @lkahney or Instagram.
