Wasting your breath

Tonight I went to see Mike Daisey's "new" monologue "Wasting your breath". I say "new" because its actually an old one that he's warming up again with some workshop performances in Berkeley, while he's still performing "21 Dog Years: Doing time @ amazon.com".

While I enjoyed "21 Dog Years" I felt, as someone who's just recovering from four years of living and breathing the whole dot com thing, it was just wasn't fresh enough for me. It was kind of like re-telling a story that's only funny if you're in the in-crowd. Yes Agent J and I both lived and breathed dot com around the same time, and we both understood the humor, and Daisey's observations were insightful and funny but like I said, I felt it was seemed to me lacking in universal human interest. That's probably because I can now take a point of view that is outside of my actual experience - if I was still in the thick of it I think I would have a different take on Dog Years.

One thing I did take away from "21 Dog Years" was that I felt Daisey probably had a lot more to tell us and a lot more talent than I'd seen so far. Tonight's performance of "Wasting your breath" definitely exposed that hidden part of the Daisey iceberg. I was delighted to enjoy well over two hours of very personal, philosophical, funny and engaging monologue.

"Wasting your breath" is the story of Daisey's post college road trip from Maine to Seattle via LA which is cleverly interspliced with the evolution of his relationship with his long term girlfriend and the description of his native Maine. Its kind of like an early life version of Spalding Gray's "Slippery Slope" which charts a similar transitional phase of life via relationships. In fact I would go as so far to say I thought that Diasey has put together a monologue that is as good as Gray's. While Daisey admits to losing his mind at one point, he's not nearly as neurotic as Gray was making his observations and humor a lot more universal. One doesn't have to identify with a middle aged WASP to feel that ones life could easily be riding along in that car with Daisey from Maine to Seattle. Its a long and emotional journey to follow with him, but in this case the journey is the reward.

My prediction is that we'll be hearing a lot more from Daisey in the future. Now that 21 Dog Years has given him some notoriety and hopefully crowd pulling ability I think if "Wasting Your Breath" is his next touring performance he will go far. I would not be at all surprised if someone starts working on a screenplay in the not too distant future. Yes it works great as a monologue but you know how Hollywood loves a road trip movie!