Daniel
Radcliffe, Cherry Jones and Bobby Cannavale photo by Jerry Cunningham
By Eugene Paul
John
D’Agata, who had been praised for the concinnity of his work in bringing
together the shit and light that is America ran into a stone wall when his
essay on the consistently high suicide rate of Las Vegas was turned down by
Harper’s Magazine. The piece – sorry, essay –was later published by upscale,
offbeat magazine, “The Believer”. D’Agata’s ongoing conflict for seven years
with fact checker Jim Fingal over his essay, became a book, “The Lifespan of a
Fact”, and then, this play, The Lifespan of a Fact, with D’Agata and
Fingal in the play. Daniel Radcliffe plays Jim Fingal brilliantly; Bobby
Cannavale plays John D’Agata thuggishly, a clever piece of casting. The referee
between them is wonderful Cherry Jones as semi-fictional magazine editor,
Emily, who realizes she has bitten off more than she can chew when her young
newbie hire as fact checker, Jim, comes in with 130 pages of notes. D’agata’s
essay is only 15 pages.
She
is desperately squeezed time wise, enough to send him out to Las Vegas to
John’s house in order for them to sort things out. And here, set designer, Mimi
Lien jolts us by harshly contrasting the sleek, high tech opening scenes in
New York with D’Agata’s modest Vegas tract house, a dwelling the antithesis of
a supposed writer’s digs. In fact, it looks more like a set than it does a
house, let alone a writer’s home. And since everything has to have a
justification, particularly in this play, you begin to wonder why. Because the
play, created out of the D’Agata/Fingal book by authors Jeremy Kareken, David
Murrell and Gordon Farrell, is far less about the suicide rate than it is about
HOW this sad, moral tale is told by its author, and whether it has scrupulously
stuck to the facts.
John
began his original article – sorry, essay –with the instance of a young man
leaping to his death off one of the highest buildings in Las Vegas. From this,
his plan was to assemble other instances and to correlate the causes in each
case within the Las Vegas area, then, to relate his findings to the causes for
suicides in the country, the overall design drawing conclusions
socio-politically. It was an important essay. It was about us all, young and
old, rich and poor, and how we got to this crisis of families, lives and
leadership.
Jim
Fingal stopped it dead at the very first sentence: was the young suicide
actually sixteen? What was the exact height of the building from which he fell
to his death? Of course, did he actually jump? How long did it take him to
fall? And so on Facts, facts, facts. Editor Emily is appalled, but this is
exactly why she hired this nerd. She cannot jeopardize her magazine to the
possibility of every kind of law suit over the slightest inaccuracies
especially considering the subject.
John
is furious. He is a writer, a highly respected essayist, he is a thoughtful,
creative person who does his best to get to the essence, the values, the human
impact of his serious work and the synthesis of his ideas and feelings. He is
as accurate as he needs to be but he does not stop the flow of his ideas and
concepts with nitpicking. And he is not a liar!
Jim
is outraged. He is not a nitpicking nerd, he is a seeker of the truth, the
absolute truth. Facts are facts, the basis of everything we need, to work
with, to live. We must have facts. All business runs on facts, laws,
governments, the whole world runs on facts. You cannot deny them without
tearing everything down. It’s a compelling dilemma for a play, all right, but
our authors have not been generous with fleshing out the characters who have to
present this vital issue without the basic juice of theatrical play making:
conflict. There really are not two sides.
Our
formidable cast tackles this formidable problem with more than the usual barrel
of resources. Director Silverman needs every bit of scenic sleight of hand she
can get from designer Lien and Hudson Theatricals technicals. She needs
every bit of Linda Cho’s costume designs, of Jen Shreiver’s lighting, of Palmer
Hefferan’s music and sound. She needs every bit of the personal assets as well
as the talents her gifted trio of stars brings to the table because they’re
simply not in the script.
Daniel Radcliffe plants his feet and is brilliantly Jim Fingal down to the
nubs. Cherry Jones brings wafts of magic not written into the character of
Emily. Bobby Cannavale exudes an animal charm not for a minute written into
the play’s D’Agata. And we need every contribution to make the play sing its
song. But – does it? This big one you decide.
The
Lifespan of a Fact. At
Studio 54,254 West 54th Street, near Eighth Avenue. Tickets:
$99-$299. 85 Min. 212-239-6200. Thru Jan 13, 2019.