The recent death of Steve Jobs provides a fascinating conundrum for Mike Daisey, the writer/performer of the solo piece The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs. On the one hand, it provides an added level of discomfort, since the monologue is not exactly complimentary to its subject. On the other, it makes the show feels breathtakingly refreshing in the light of the pervasive hagiography that has occurred in recent weeks.

By now, Daisey has proven himself to be a master monologist and a worthy successor to the late, great Spalding Gray. Although all of his pieces have a highly personal aspect, he’s far less self-reflective than his predecessor, and this latest effort demonstrates yet again his talent for delivering incisive explorations of serious political and social themes while at the same being consistently hilarious.

In this two-hour presentation, he interweaves an account of Jobs’ life and career as one of the most influential figures in modern business and technology with a hard-hitting expose of the horrific conditions under which Apple’s—and most other company’s--high-tech products are made.

Labeling himself as an “Apple aficionado” who has long been a “worshipper at the cult of Mac,” Daisey delivers a compelling biographical portrait of Jobs in which he describes him as both “a visionary and an asshole.”

But it’s his description of a trip taken to Shenzhen, China--where there are massive factories in which Apple’s devices are manufactured--that is the evening’s most compelling element. Posing as a wealthy businessman, he managed to get a tour of one such mega-factory, Foxxconn. To give an idea of its scale, he challenges the audience to imagine a cafeteria that can accommodate 10,000 workers, and then take in the fact that the factory contains fifty such cafeterias.

He movingly relates his secret interviews with workers who are just twelve and thirteen years old and another whose hands have been reduced to virtual claws as a result of the repetitive movements his job required. He showed the latter his iPad, which the man had never seen in operation despite the fact that he had been assembling them for months.

Although Daisey’s message is deadly serious, the piece never turns ponderous, thanks to his masterful comic technique. Whether describing the horrors of Powerpoint presentations, imitating the ungodly screech of a dot matrix printer, or relating his own obsession with Apple products, he provides belly laughs that make the evening as entertaining as it is thoughtful.

Public Theater, 425 Lafayette St. 212-967-7555. www.publictheater.org.