21 Dog Years: Doing Time @ Amazon.com

The dot-com time: What the hell happened? It's a question for the ages, especially around here, one most recently taken up by the Berkeley Rep, which has had the good sense to mount Mike Daisey's powerhouse tell-all monologue. The piece isn't just a rebuke to the oppressive Internet titan where Daisey clambered from customer service ("This nation's religion and birthright," he was told) to business development to a kind of professional toxic shock. It's also the author's effort to stake his creative claim. With only a laptop, a latte, and a desk made from a door as props, Daisey delivers, and skewers, whole cultures: of an office, an empire, and an era. And he has a heck of a time. (The show is directed supportively and astutely by Daisey's wife, Jean-Michele Gregory.) The program notes include his "real résumé, circa 2000," with annotations -- "i.e., desk monkey." Daisey, who develops his monologues scriptlessly, exudes honesty and has a flair for performance; these traits combine in just-right proportions for irresistible storytelling. He also exhibits the great chubby-comic magnetism of a long line of stars before him, which, in part, explains how such a soul-numbing experience might be transmuted into something so elevating and hilarious.