The Lifespan of a Fact, MTC, 21 May 2021 ****

THEATRE

Written by Jeremy Kareken & David Murrell and Gordon Farrell, by Melbourne Theatre Company

At Fairfax Studio, Arts Centre Melbourne, until 3 July 2021

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

Stars: ****

This review is published only on this blog. KH

  
Steve Mouzakis,  Karl Richmond

 

The Lifespan of a Fact is bound to trigger arguments about the vices and virtues of literary non-fiction and the value of fact and truth in this purportedly non-fiction literary form that demands the same poetic licence as fiction writing.

 

Creative non-fiction colours and enhances a true story by imbuing it with literary flourishes and making it a more palatable story. From where I’m standing, if you don’t use facts, i.e. empirical truth, then it’s no longer non-fiction.

 

Evidently, facts don’t appeal to lots of people because they are dry and require effort to process. We need to be fed facts wrapped in a story to which we can relate. This is what myths and religious stories such as the Bible provide, and now, it seems, so does literary non-fiction.

 

The play is based on a factual book (or is it?) by creative non-fiction writer, John D’Agata (Steve Mouzakis), and his former fact-checker, Jim Fingal (Karl Richmond). It depicts an escalating ideological struggle when Fingal, a young Harvard graduate working for a major New York magazine, is tasked by editor, Emily Penrose (Nadine Garner), with fact-checking a creative non-fiction essay (‘It’s not an article!’) that takes the suicide of a young man in Las Vegas as its inspiration.

 

When Jim gets stuck on factual problems in the first sentence of page one in John’s essay, he first calls the writer, who is dismissive, then flies from New York to Las Vegas to knock on the door of a shocked and angry John. When Emily finds out about Jim’s rash flight to Las Vegas, she is so alarmed and horrified that she flies to join them for a midnight to dawn editorial meeting / bunfight.

 

The performances are vivid and compelling while Petra Kalive’s direction is deft. Garner’s Emily is variously capable, frenetic, vulnerable and brusque. Mouzakis’s D’Agata is rough-edged, arrogant, brittle and funny, while Richmond as Fingal balances sincerity and deference with smug, intellectual superiority.

 

The dialogue is swift-moving, funny and clever, and the play, set over five, whirlwind days and one frantic night, gallops at a cracking pace from start to cliff-hanger finish.

 

How do we assess which facts can be massaged for the sake of literary genius and storytelling impact and which are immutable? The argument about whether ‘truth’ is different from ‘fact’ is interminable and this play makes that abundantly clear.

 

By Kate Herbert

Nadine Garner

Cast: Nadine Garner, Steve Mouzakis, Karl Richmond

Director Petra Kalive 

Set Designer Andrew Bailey

Costume Designer Kat Chan

Lighting Designer Paul Lim

Composer & Sound Designer Emma Valente

Voice and Dialect Coach Geraldine Cook-Dafner

Assistant Director Alice Qin