Mike Daisey: On Lying and the Nature of Magic

Show Description

The latest piece in an explosion of new work by Mike Daisey, On Lying and the Nature of Magic is the first of two monologues he’ll perform this March about forbidden things that everyone does all the time. On this night he’ll examine the social codes that govern lying, the uncomfortable truths of how lying interlaces with fiction and story, and what it means when we say we’re telling the truth. Picasso famously said, “art is a lie that tells the truth”…if he even ever really said that at all. For one night, we’ll put our cards on the table and try to work out the story beneath the story.

"A monologuist who always threatens to burst out of his chosen form—funny, literate and provocative." -CHICAGO TRIBUNE

"Sharp-witted, passionately delivered talk about matters both small and huge, at once utterly individual and achingly universal." -BOSTON GLOBE

“The master storyteller—one of the finest solo performers of his generation.” -THE NEW YORK TIMES

"Daisey's skill is that he is able to talk about the historical and make it human, the personal and make it universal, so that the listener is both informed and transformed." -PAPER MAGAZINE

"A charismatic performer, his shows have the insightful hostility of the best comedy." -THE NEW YORKER

"Mike Daisey is funny, earnest, wonderful company and so smart he'd burn holes in the ground if he wasn't wearing shoes— he is an artist that the American theater needs, and one we would be lost without." -OSKAR EUSTIS, Artistic Director of The Public Theater