The Lifespan of a Fact
By Jeremy Kareken, David Murrel and Jordan Farrell
Directed by Ben Phillips
Reviewed by David Ellivloc
I am certain that this will come as no shock to anyone who
knows me even slightly but, for the benefit of the rest of you, I hereby
disclose that I have rightly and often been vociferously accused of never
letting the truth get in the way of a good story. Now, don’t misjudge me, but I think that this
behavior on my part is a good thing and is indeed one for which I strive. However, and this may surprise you, I am not in
my opinion a liar and consider myself scrupulously truthful, despite my
peculiar predilection. I believe that,
by embellishing or perhaps one might posit even improving the truth, I am
serving a larger purpose in getting the true feeling or nature of some event (i.e.,
THE TRUTH) across to my audience. So you
can imagine my surprise and immediate interest when the lights came up at ONSTAGE
in Bedford last Friday and I quickly discovered that the comedy The
Lifespan of a Fact was a play about the right or wrong of such an
approach to storytelling.
At lights up, in a cleverly sparse set wrapped in evocative newsprint,
I saw an obviously harried and hurried woman of intelligence in magazine editor
Emily Penrose, as played by Susan Dergoul. Her immediate task is to get a straight-outta-Harvard-grad, named Jim Fingal (engagingly played by Hayden
Moore,) up to speed and out of her hair.
Moore’s Fingal is eager to please. In fact, he is dangerously
anxious to impress, something for which Dergoul’s Penrose has no
time and little interest. The tension in
these first scenes is just right as both Dergoul’s and Moore’s
characters struggle to maintain proper new employee/boss decorum while angling
to get what they each need. Dergoul’s
Penrose needs a swift fact-checking by Fingal of a possibly
earth-shaking essay by a brilliant writer, who she knows from experience
sometimes has a casual relationship with the facts. While Moore’s Fingal, who is quite obviously
over his head with this assignment, wheedlingly seeks more guidance and clarity
while maintaining he’s got this.
The third side of this triangle, (which is, happily, an
equilateral one, since all three actors are of excellent and equal strength,) is Bradford
Rielly, who plays writer John D’Agata with a believable and fun
irascibility. Moore’s Fingal
is thrust into the fray by Dergoul’s Penrose, and the initial
contact between Fingal and D’Agata is very funny as Rielly’s
D’Agata demands, “Who are you???!!!???”.
The action and the mayhem really ratchet up when Dergoul’s Penrose
learns the geographic lengths to which Fingal has gone to get the
Dragnet Joe Friday “just the facts” 411 from D’Agata about the subject
of the essay, a teen suicide in Las Vegas from the top of the Stratosphere
Hotel and Casino. The back and forth
banter between all three actors is fast, funny and furious. There’s even some very nice bits of physical
comedy.
The Lifespan of a Fact is a play about ideas of truth
and art and whether they should or could be allowed to intersect, overlap or diverge,
without sacrificing one for the other. However,
it’s also full of action as the play has three well-written protagonists, again
all extremely well-played in this production, along with a plot of many turns
and twists as allegiances change and other concerns, such a magazine
“circulation literally dying”, are also raised and impinge on the purer
arguments about truth’s relationship to art.
Director Ben Phillips has masterfully helmed this fun and
interesting evening of theatre that has a 90 minutes and out format (i.e., no
intermission). Definitely, this is a
play that warrants some discussion afterwards, and allows for it with the
compressed ninety-minute run time, so bring some friends and have some fun during
the play AND afterwards. Get your tickets at onstageinbedford.com
Accessible seating: Available
Hearing Devices Available: Not Available
Sensory Friendly Showing: No
Audience Rating: PG
Production Sound Level: Comfortable Volume
Noises and Visuals to Know About: Yes, a character
chokes another for about 5 seconds.
See you at the theater!
David Ellivloc
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