Why Does the Audience Exit This Play Arguing?
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Director Leigh Silverman, who earned a Tony nomination for helming the musical Violet, says she was immediately drawn to the project because it raised “questions that tumble around” her brain all the time. “I’ve worked on a lot of plays based on real people, and I’ve often wondered about artistic license, and when truth and accuracy are synonymous and when they are not,” she says. “The question of the play is, how do we understand this story best? Is it when we know the exact number of steps that the boy took when he jumped off a building? Or is it the poetic truth about how he may have felt?”
That conundrum becomes even more of a brainteaser when you realize The Lifespan of a Fact is based on the eponymous 2012 book by the real-life fact checker, Jim Fingal, and the writer, John D’Agata, who argued via email for years about the boundaries of fact and fiction. A trio of playwrights, Jeremy Kareken, David Murrell and Gordon Farrell, has spun their sparring into an incisive and entertaining one-act that takes some dramatic liberties.
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While The Lifespan of a Fact does not directly comment on our present political predicament, it echoes the polarized bickering we hear every day online and in the media as Jim and John go at it under their editor’s watchful eye. “It’s a vigorous debate,” Silverman says. “It starts off feeling like a domestic office comedy and then it spirals out of control — the arguments just keep building and intensifying. These three people take what they do incredibly seriously, and they are passionate about the craft of storytelling.”
Silverman says their zeal is so infectious, theatregoers often continue their deliberations while exiting the theatre. “Part of what is exciting and engaging and disorienting for the audience is that they start off feeling allied with one character and then the other, and those alliances shift continually as the night goes on,” she says. “People who thought they were going to be on one side frequently find themselves conflicted. I must say, the experience of working on this play, which debates the nature of fact and truth, has been very profound.”
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Gerard Raymond is an arts journalist based in New York City.
Daniel Radcliffe, Cherry Jones and Bobby Cannavale in The Lifespan of a Fact. Photos by Peter Cunningham.
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Gerard Raymond is a Sri Lanka-born arts journalist based in New York City who’s a member of the Outer Critics Circle and the American Theater Critics/Journalists Association.