Wednesday, March 28, 2012
This Is A Work of Non-Fiction
artsjournal.com: In 2010 I worked at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, when The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs (TATESJ) was “birthed” at the theatre, and the following spring was the marketing and communications director who worked on the show at Woolly. Today, as an independent consultant, I write as a former marketing director who is no longer bound by the public statement of her institution in this matter, and what I would like to say is this: Mike Daisey, you should be ashamed of yourself. And to members of the American theatre: we should be disappointed in ourselves too.
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5 comments:
I've glanced at articles posted to the NFTRW blog about The Agony and Ecstasy of Steve Jobs but I hadn't been following along. In fact, I have no idea what the play is really about, but I'm assuming it has something to do with Steve Jobs (considering the title) and that it probably isn't completely flattering (considering it came out after his death). The first article I read about the play was this one. Needless to say, I'm a bit confused.
This reminds me a lot of the controversy surrounding A Million Little Pieces. Someone creates a piece of art (be it theatre or literature) that is marketed as a true story made up of real true facts. Everyone thinks it's fantastic. Then, somehow, it's revealed that it isn't really made up of real true facts... the facts are only kind of true. I don't think people would have a problem with a work of art taking some liberty with the facts as long as it wasn't portrayed as "a true story" or "a work of non-fiction." That's the problem.
I have to agree with the comment above, I am not entirely sure that was going on in terms of the plot or content of the play (expect that it had to do with Steve Jobs). However, I do feel that it is extremely shameful to market something as truth and have it be a work of fiction. People come to theater to be lied to all the time. We tell them a theater in NY is actually a Jungle in South America. But there is a big difference: they know we're lying. If the Playbill specifically announces this play as true the audience will believe it. I am ashamed for this creator. There is never a time to create slander and pass it off as fact. And to even ask the audience to pay for it is a ridiculous request.
Wow this guy is angry... It is obvious that this work is a contentious issue. Yes the work was labeled "non-fiction" but as Mike Daisey said on this American Life it is supposed dramatize what he saw in order to give an over all picture of what he saw. And it's not like there aren't bad things going on in China and with Apple and it's like we shouldn't all be looking for ways to help. Given all this Mike Daisey still should not have labeled his work non-fiction. But if he hadn't would people have listened to it? Would they have cared as much as they did about it? Shouldn't the theaters that put it on have done some background work to find out if the plot was real? Or shouldn't they have questioned the non-fiction label to be put in the program. Art is not ever an exact reflection of life although sometime it can be very close. We shouldn't believe everything that we see on stage or hear on the radio.
This author points out an important issue. Yes, Mike Daisy lied when he entitled “The Agony and Ecstasy of Steve Jobs” a work of non-fiction. But such discrepancies have been made before; does anyone remember “A Million Little Pieces”? The problem is not that Mike Daisy lied, but that he lied to such a fragile audience. Mike Daisy’s show brought in a new type of audience to the theatre world, a rare thing nowadays. But he then betrayed their trust by presenting his one-man show in an untruthful way. He managed to take an audience new to theatrical art and give them a tainted version of it. This is an unfair thing to do to both audiences and the theatre industry as a whole. However just Mike Daisy may think his own cause to be, he does owe an apology to the industry he has damaged.
I don't know the play, so I'm not sure what it was that was supposed to shock the audience and be a call to action. However, the fact that there WAS something, that the play really intended to change peoples minds about something important, it makes it that much more deplorable that he stretched the facts. I think saying that truth is told in different ways is a pretty bullshit excuse for labeling something as non-fiction without that being completely true. I respect this author for how she presented this story, and apologized for something that wasn't really hers to apologize for. Of course, we can never know what truly went down unless we were a part of it.
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