Largely Unaltered Show Goes On for Fact-Challenged Apple Monologist

Updated: March 19, 2012; 9:20 a.m. EDT

NEW YORK -- The show must go on, and so it did Saturday For Michael Daisey in a live performance with few changes of his widely-known monologue critical of Apple’s overseas manufacturing operations -- despite allegations that it contains significant fabrications.

Daisey only peripherally addressed the controversy surrounding "The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs," telling the matinee audience just before the performance that he had altered parts of his work. But he left in many disputed details, including those which prompted This American Life to retract their piece on him. The radio program this weekend also aired a 1-hour show that both confronts Daisey directly and points out numerous alleged fabrications.

"When the lights go down, I will go backstage. When I come back up, the lights will come up on the stage and I will be telling a story," Daisey said before curtain time. "The whole attempt is to try to shine a light through something and get at the truth. The truth is vitally important. I believe that very deeply."

Daisy met a firestorm after This American Life, a radio show produced by Chicago Public Radio and distributed by Public Radio International, retracted an episode based on Daisey's monologue, still in production through Sunday at New York's Public Theater. Daisey performed the piece as scheduled Saturday afternoon — his first public performance since the retraction.

During the roughly one hour and 45 minute dark-humor stage performance, Daisey expressed his fanboyism for Apple products and retraced the tech company's curious history. A narrative throughout the show detailed Daisey's June 2010 investigation of poor working conditions in Apple's overseas factories, which are owned and operated by Foxconn.

As performed by Daisey on Saturday, the show still contained many details that This American Life alleged are lies or fabrications. Tales of gun-wielding security guards outside the Foxconn factory, a crippled factory worker who used an iPad for the first time and called it "magic" and even a personal interaction with his Chinese language interpreter, who goes by the name of Cathy Lee -- all of which the interpreter flatly denied -- remain in the show.

Compared to a full transcript of the original show, Daisey's new version expanded some sections, shrunk others and questioned Cathy's memory.

One challenged her word on a chat with a female factory worker who cleaned iPhone screens in the assembly line. Daisey claimed he met her outside Foxconn's factory, asked the girl how old she was and she replied "I'm 13."

"Two years later, when Cathy is asked about this, she won't remember. But I do," Daisey said during his show today.

Cathy has refuted this particular story. "I think that if she said she was 13 or 12, then I would be surprised. I would be very surprised. And I would remember for sure. But there is no such thing," she told This American Life.

The playbill for the show states "this is a work of nonfiction" and "some names and identities have been changed to protect sources."

Philip Rinaldi, Daisey's publicist, told Wired an updated transcript is "[n]ow being worked on," but he didn't provide a date for its publication.

Since This American Life's retraction, Daisey has published a statement on his website addressing the debacle:

I stand by my work. My show is a theatrical piece whose goal is to create a human connection between our gorgeous devices and the brutal circumstances from which they emerge. It uses a combination of fact, memoir, and dramatic license to tell its story, and I believe it does so with integrity. Certainly, the comprehensive investigations undertaken by The New York Times and a number of labor rights groups to document conditions in electronics manufacturing would seem to bear this out.

What I do is not journalism. The tools of the theater are not the same as the tools of journalism. For this reason, I regret that I allowed THIS AMERICAN LIFE to air an excerpt from my monologue. THIS AMERICAN LIFE is essentially a journalistic ­- not a theatrical ­- enterprise, and as such it operates under a different set of rules and expectations. But this is my only regret. I am proud that my work seems to have sparked a growing storm of attention and concern over the often appalling conditions under which many of the high-tech products we love so much are assembled in China.

A statement released discreetly on the Public Theater's website also confronted the controversy:

In the theater, our job is to create fictions that reveal truth-- that's what a storyteller does, that's what a dramatist does. THE AGONY AND THE ECSTASY OF STEVE JOBS reveals, as Mike's other monologues have, human truths in story form.

In this work, Mike uses a story to frame and lead debate about an important issue in a deeply compelling way. He has illuminated how our actions affect people half-a-world away and, in doing so, has spurred action to address a troubling situation. This is a powerful work of art and exactly the kind of storytelling that The Public Theater has supported, and will continue to support in the future.

Mike is an artist, not a journalist. Nevertheless, we wish he had been more precise with us and our audiences about what was and wasn’t his personal experience in the piece.

Candi Adams, director of communications for the Public Theater, told Wired that Daisey was not conducting any interviews, and he could not be reached for comment.

Arikia Millikan contributed to this report.