Photo by Stan Barouh

The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs at Woolly Mammoth

An iPhone weighs about 5 oz, but yours might feel like a ton of bricks after seeing Mike Daisey's compelling The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs. Daisey, a self-avowed Apple nut, traveled to China last year to learn about the working conditions in the factories that make his favorite products, and what he saw appalled him: Children as young as 12 working 75 hours a week or more, all so he could upgrade from a 3 to a 4.

But before Daisey delves into the human rights abuses that he believes Jobs is ignoring, he paints a humorous picture of our tech-crazed society and the megalomaniac that keeps us addicted, who is the stuff of Chuck Norris legend to him (Recalling Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer's chair-throwing episode, Daisey declares that Jobs doesn't need to throw chairs: "He can move them with his mind.") His trip to China is recalled not just in observations about human rights, but also in his experience being an outsider, expressing amazement at Chinese business card protocol, and describing Shenzen as a city that "looks like Blade Runner threw up on itself."

Sitting in front of a grid that echoes the Manhattan glass cube Apple store, Daisey frequently mops his brow from sweat, because he gets worked up easily. He often declares that he or someone else is "fuuuuuuuuucked," drawing out the word as long as possible, and he can do a pitch-perfect impression of a dot-matrix printer. What he doesn't do, though, is preach. While Daisey's aim is to inspire us to action (he hands out a sheet with Jobs' email address at the end of the show), he frames the discussion through his own discoveries as a heavy tech user, so he shares our burden and grief. When you walk out of the theater, you'll be illuminated by more than the glow of your LED screen.