Where is the line drawn between fact and fiction? The Lifespan of a Fact, a play opening at Riverside Theatre in Iowa City on April 18, asks — and debates — that very question.
Based on a book of the same name, co-written by fact-checker Jim Fingal and the University of Iowa's own Director of the Nonfiction Writing Program John D'Agata, the play follows the power struggle between the two men as they work to fact-check D'Agata's essay for a literary magazine.
Riverside Producing Artistic Director Adam Knight calls the play the "capstone" of the theater's season. It's being put on with partnerships with the University of Iowa's Department of English and School of Journalism and Mass Communication. It will also invite D'Agata himself for a talkback after one of the performances to discuss with audience members the very essence of creative nonfiction that the play explores.
The real-life story
Back in 2003, author John D’Agata was commissioned by Harper’s Magazine to write an essay, "What Happens There," that examined the culture of suicide in Las Vegas through the death of a 16-year-old boy who jumped from a hotel observation deck.
The magazine's editorial team ultimately rejected D'Agata's essay due to disputes over factual accuracy, so D’Agata turned to The Believer, where the essay entered another rigorous fact-checking phase — this time with a meticulous, Harvard-educated researcher named Jim Fingal.
The back-and-forth between the two — as Fingal questioned every detail, and D’Agata defended his creative license — went on for seven years. The result of that prolonged exchange was The Lifespan of a Fact, a 2012 book that pairs the original essay with Fingal's annotations and their sharp, sometimes absurd debates in the margins over what qualifies as “truth” in nonfiction. Critics loved it — NPR even called it "the most improbably entertaining book ever published."
The play
Fast-forward to 2018, and a play based on the book opened on Broadway for a limited run with an all-star cast: Daniel Radcliffe, Cherry Jones and Bobby Cannavale.
The play takes plenty of its own creative liberties, condensing years of dialogue into a few days' worth of fictional drama. Fingal's character becomes an intern, and the play adds a third character, magazine editor Emily Penrose, played by actor Megan Gogerty in Riverside's production, which reshapes the story into a fast-paced triangle of characters scrambling to meet an implausible deadline.
"Her addition really is fascinating and creates a different power structure between the writer and the intern, where all of a sudden, you have this liaison between them," Knight said.
Martin Andrews, who portrays D'Agata, and Elijah J. Jones, who plays Fingal, dramatize the conversations had between the two men, fighting over small details and D'Agata's frequent embellishments on the truth in favor of storytelling.
“They are not entirely sympathetic characters at times. And things go to pretty big extremes," Knight said.
Knight met D'Agata in 2019 over coffee, when he learned about the book being turned into a play. He said he chose the play to perform this season because it speaks "to this moment of great uncertainty" regarding facts and information.
"John continues to be a major voice nationally for the essay forum, but also what an impact he's had locally, making our city such a mecca for this form of storytelling that's still relatively new in the grand scheme of literature and writing," he said. "It felt like a unique opportunity to have a play in which one of the main characters of the play is a real-life person who's going to come see the play.”
The Lifespan of a Fact runs through May 4 at Riverside Theatre. There will be a free-to-attend talkback with Knight and D’Agata following the April 19 evening performance and a free talkback with the performers and director following the April 27 matinee performance.
