I walked into Joe’s Pub on the lower east side with Jackie last Wednesday night for a seven o’clock show. We decided to see All the Faces of the Moon: The Devil Always Plays to a Draw. There would only be one person on stage; Mike Daisey would be performing a monologue. This man had become famous and attracted “international attention” last year after performing a monologue in which he insulted Apple and Steve Jobs. Of course, he issued an apology soon after. I was excited to see him.
The room was fairly large, seating around 100 people. It was dimly lit, with candles at every table. Waiters and waitreses were walking around serving drinks and food. We were seated in the back of the room, but still had a fine view of the stage. I noticed there weren’t many teenagers there, or college students for that matter. Most of the people looked in their mid-twenties and thirties.
Soon, the lights dimmed even more and Daisey appeared on stage. He looked like an interesting character: a furry face and weighed at least 300 pounds. Only him, a table and chair, a microphone, and a beautiful painting were on the stage.
He started off the performance answering a question he had received prior to his show. Someone had come up to him and asked how if he memorized everything he was going to say. He responded in disbelief that someone even asked him something like that. How people had nothing better to talk about than something like that. He was astounded. He added how natural this was for him, and us as an audience were stupid for paying to come and hear him tell a story. I laughed.
Next, he began speaking about his early childhood and how he loved to play chess. “Chess was a wonderful game” he said, “and I was a nerd.” He had a friendly and very confident tone throughout his story. I could tell that he was thinking about everything he was saying before it came out of his mouth. He commentated how chess was such a “straightforward” game, how there were no other variables, unlike poker. All the moves were right there on the board.
He recalled the last time he had played chess was in Turkey, and began reminiscing about his past trip. He admitted he had been depressed. He had been in Paris and Turkey with his fiancé at the time, and didn’t enjoy himself in Paris because of his depression. While on the topic, he said, “You pretend to be happy so you will be happy. This is a natural human quality.” “Only you change when you’re going through depression. Nothing else changes – the same sun, people; they don’t change. The sun that was shining on your face is still there after you get over it.” I stopped my thought process and went back to this statement and realized he was right. I had never thought of depression in that light before.
His voice varied throughout his stories. At times, he would be talking like he would be speaking to a friend at dinner. At other times, he would be screaming and cursing and red in the face. This change in mood was effective in keeping the audience awake and entertained the whole time.
He then brought up a scenario in chess: when one opponent is obviously winning the whole game, but somehow still stalemates in the end. Daisey says its one of the worst feelings to be winning the whole time and then tie in the end. This is where I think the title of his monologue comes from. Even when the Devil is losing throughout the whole game, he can still ruin it for his opponent by getting a stalemate.
The oil painting that sat behind him was professionally done by an artist named Larissa Tokmakova. He has 29 total performances featuring “All the Faces of the Moon,” with a different painting each night for the month of September and the beginning of October. Daisey held his audience’s full attention for the full hour and a half. I only saw maybe two people leave the room during his performance, but eventually returned somewhat quickly. Even more, he got a lot of laughs and applause too.
Daisey went into a long and complicated story involving multiple characters by the names of Elaine and the “daughter of the moon”, The New York Times, magic, and much, much more. This story took up about half of his performance, and jumped around quite a lot. Even after I got lost on multiple occasions, I was still entranced in everything that he was saying.
I had absolutely no idea what was going on in the story. He gracefully went from scene to scene and I was trying as hard as I could to keep up. The beginning I sort of understood, but after the first 20 minutes he lost me. Cut off hands, spells, kidnapping, an “attack,” and mystery were all found in this humongous story. I turned to Jackie at the end of the show and we both had the same question: “what the hell just happened?”
After he finished his final thought, he stood up to thunderous applause from the crowd. The audience absolutely loved everything that he had mentioned, whether they had followed him to the conclusion or not. His elaborate storytelling definitely impressed the crowd, myself included.
After the show, I looked him up to try to find out a little more about him. Apparently, this one night’s story is apart of his whole chain of stories: every story he tells in All the Faces of the Moon were connected. It was one, long continuous story that stretched through 29 nights of his monologues.
If you have the time and money, I implore you to go to one of shows. Even if you can’t follow everything he is saying, you won’t be disappointed. And if you can’t go to any of his shows, every show is recorded and on iTunes for free.
His one duty on stage was to tell the audience a story. A raconteur. And that’s exactly what he did. The audience and I loved having heard him speak. I wish I had the time and money to attend the other eight performances he has left!
