Steve Jobs' Agony and Ecstasy to Hit NY Stage

A new play about Steve Jobs, the public's love affair with the devices he created, and the human cost of creating them, will go ahead next week despite his death, theater representatives said on Thursday.

The off-Broadway one-man show, The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs, will open at The Public Theater in New York on October 17 with previews beginning next week. The Apple Inc. co-founder died on Wednesday at the age of 56, after a years-long and highly public battle with cancer and other health issues.

The play is not a straight homage to Jobs, but rather a hilarious and harrowing tale of pride, beauty, lust, and industrial design, by performer Mike Daisey. It looks at Jobs' technology obsessions while sharing his own stories of touring iPod and iPhone factories in China, the theater company said.

This moment is an opportunity to peel back the surface and get at the secret heart of our relationship with Steve Jobs, his devices, our labor, and China itself, said Daisey in a statement.

Steve Jobs had an enormous impact on our lives; in many ways, the world he has left to us is his world. This is a perfect moment to contemplate that world, its values and practices, and decide what parts of his legacy we should embrace and what parts we need to reject, Daisey said.