Fact or Fiction

What is real? Whether it be questions about the pandemic or election integrity or allegations of sexual abuse or whether Alec Baldwin caused the death of his Director of Photography, we hear “alternative facts” – itself a newly coined phrase that is part of our modern world.

Our 2022 season deals with memories – and the lies (big and small) we tell ourselves. “Never let the truth get in the way of a good story” is the mantra of many a great writer. Eugene O’Neill, the father of American drama, wrote, “The past is the present, isn’t it? It’s the future too. We all try to lie out of that but life won’t let us.”

I’ve told so many stories so many times I’m uncertain what is real and what made for a better story. I know where the jokes are and take a moment for the listener to laugh knowing the rhythm of the narrative. When it comes to memories from my own life, I think I’m telling the truth but is it just that I’ve told the story so many times that certain embellishments have become the truth?

You’ll experience characters relating their memories in each of our 2022 productions and grapple with the question of facts. Here’s a snippet of dialogue and a stage direction from “The Lifespan of a Fact” that sums it all up perfectly:

Jim: What do you mean “at the base”?

John: What do I mean “at the base”?!

Jim: That intersection is fifty feet from the base, you should say “near the base”!

John lunges at Jim, his hands going toward Jim’s neck. Jim stumbles backward against the table, his hands going up to grab John’s.

Sounds a bit like a Senate hearing with Rand Paul and Dr. Anthony Fauci.