Apple co-founder on stage for disputed monologue

The monologue is about the iconic computer giant's production lines in China.

WASHINGTON: Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak is to join a benefit performance of a controversial monologue about the iconic computer giant's production lines in China, a theater in Washington said Tuesday.

"The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs" made headlines earlier this year when it emerged that its creator, Mike Daisey, had fabricated some of its content for dramatic effect.

The frank-talking Wozniak, 61, "will be doing a post-show conversation" with Daisey on August 4, the eve of the show's final performance at the Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, spokeswoman Brooke Miller told AFP.

Wozniak famously assembled the first Apple computer in Jobs' garage in 1976, a year before they co-founded the company. No longer active at Apple, he recently sung the praises of Microsoft Windows Phone, a rival to the iPhone.

Last January, radio program "This American Life" aired part of Daisey's show dealing with visits he said he had made to Foxconn factories in China, where iPhones are put together and where working conditions have been criticized.

Two months later, public radio retracted the broadcast after it emerged, in part through the channel's fact-checking with Daisey's Chinese interpreter, that it contained "numerous fabrications."

"The most powerful and memorable moments in the story all seem to be fabricated," host Ira Glass told listeners, while Daisey said he had used artistic license to heighten concerns about Apple's corporate practices.

Woolly Mammoth, which hosted the first performances of "The Agony and the Ecstasy" in 2010, said the show's new run on its stage -- opening July 17 -- "cuts the contested material and addresses the controversy head-on."

Tickets for the August 4 evening performance start at $100, more than double the regular price of $40.

Alternatively, Daisey has posted the entire transcript of "The Agony and the Ecstasy" on his blog and invited anybody who wants to perform it themselves to use it.