30/09/2022
Truth is stranger than fiction. Or is it? We are living in a world of un-truths and fake news and trying to get to the truth of matters is difficult, if not darned impossible because no matter what truth is revealed we no longer trust our leaders or our once trusted institutions to, in fact, give us the truth as it is. We only expect the truth that they want us to believe. So, it was with this perception in mind that I eagerly embraced the STC production of The Lifespan of a Fact. This production had been planned since 2019 but a certain virus that originated in Wuhan (seafood market, biolab - fact or fiction?) intervened. And in that intervening time, we witnessed the Twitter inspired Trump era, the storming of the Capitol and the Mar-a-lago- raids just to name a few questionable moments. The play was based on a book written about essayist John D'Agata’s ‘essay’ about the su***de of a young man, Levi Presley. The book detailed the years long battle between d’Agata and a fact-checker, Jim Fingal, to sort out the ‘truth’ from the ‘fiction’ in the essay. I hung on every word in this production as the words were vitally important. It would have been better staged in a more intimate space but then financial considerations and venue availability (fact or my fiction?) came into play in the intervening years. I’ve long been interested in what is true in art. For every film we see, including bio-pics, there is a disclaimer that the film is based on ‘real’ events but the characters portrayed bear no resemblance to persons living or dead. Similarly in literature, with memoirs or even fiction, how much is actually the author’s truth and how much is pure fiction. I’m also very interested in adaptations – how to distill a book into a movie or play is quite an art. Remember ‘precis’ at school? In this particular case the years have been distilled into a few days and a ticking time bomb set beneath it. For me it all worked very well but I could have done without the music – the wordplay brilliantly presented by the three-member cast said it all. I once auditioned one of the actors, Sigrid Thornton, together with Russell Crowe, for a play I intended to produce but in the passage of time could that be true, or just a figment of my imagination as it was a very memorable evening? I also wrote a screenplay about a true event and, in my eyes, a living legend, but it didn’t go anywhere because I couldn’t find enough dirt on my main character to make the film dynamic enough. After seeing this excellent play I’m inspired to go back to it – like D'Agata implies - never let the facts get in the way of a good story. I’ve now almost finished a story based on a truth (or almost truth) that is definitely a fiction. If you are interested in the truth, word-play and engaging human dynamics, you really should get along to see this. I’m not a qualified reviewer (truth) but if I were, I would give it 4 stars.
