TimeLine Theater’s The Lifespan of a Fact is a quintessentially UChicago play, for better and for worse. That is to say, it is a play that questions what journalistic integrity is through a series of moral and ethical debates.
The Lifespan of a Fact was adapted from the book of the same name written by John D’Agata and Jim Fingal, with the play written by UChicago alums Jeremy Kareken (A.B. ’91), David Murrell (A.B. ’90), and Gordon Farrell.
The story follows Jim Fingal (Alex Benito Rodriguez), a Harvard graduate and fact-checker at a major magazine who is assigned to an essay written by John D’Agata (PJ Powers). When Jim begins to discover that the essay is riddled with inconsistencies and false facts, what ensues is a frenzy of fact-checking and debates between John, Jim, and his boss Emily Penrose (Juliet Hart).
“I don’t think we could have written this play without our time at the University of Chicago,” said Kareken. When Kareken says that, he means it literally in that he would not have met his co-writer David Murrell if not for their time at the University.
“We met in 1987,” Murrell recounted. He was a sophomore, Kareken a freshman. “He was also at Burton-Judson. And we just met the standard way you meet people in college because we were in the same dorm, you know.”
“I remember the Dodd-Mead table in [the] Burton-Judson dining hall, circular table,” Kareken smiles. “And I remember his gray sweatshirt.”
Just from watching the two, their closeness is obvious. You can see it in their casual tone and the way they effortlessly bounce off each other’s points. But it was only later in their friendship, after their time in college, that they decided to become artistic collaborators. “Jeremy was known more at that time [for his] writing. I was not writing in college, really. He and I tried collaborating on something I think in our junior or senior year, but it never really went anywhere. And that was pretty much it for me,” Murrell says.
But there’s another way in which the play is quintessentially UChicago. “The University of Chicago is in the bones of this play. It’s a very dialectical play,” Kareken said. Over the course of the play, there’s a lot of back and forth between the three characters: about which facts are technically correct, how far truths can be stretched, and what the definition of “truth” even is. Admittedly, this element of the play made the production feel repetitive and frustrating at times. But in light of my conversation with Kareken and Murrell, perhaps that is the point, that as an audience member, you can’t help but feel slightly annoyed at this debate that feels like it’s leading everywhere and nowhere at the same time.
“There are no bad guys. These are three people who are definitely interested in intellectual inquiry, and it gets into something deeper, more difficult than mere intellectualism,” Kareken explains. Murrell adds that “there’s a rigorousness to [the play] and a lack of sentimentality” that has made The Lifespan of a Fact successful. (The show enjoyed a Broadway run back in 2018, starring Daniel Radcliffe and Cherry Jones.) Perhaps that much is true; the play does successfully explore the debate that it sets out and leaves you wanting more. It’s the type of play that, as a UChicago student, feels familiar in its discourse, language, and almost nitpicky technicalities.
Kareken attributes this to his and Murrell’s friendship: “We knew enough about each other’s processes that we could take each other’s positions well enough because so much of this play is about debate. There’s a bunch of voices going on in this play, [so] it helps that we knew each other so well, I think.”
Is it a play for everybody? Perhaps not. It’s not exactly a feel-good play, and it leaves you feeling neither satisfied nor content. But it is a play that makes you think, not only during the show as you watch the actors shout at each other from across a well-lit stage but long after the curtain has dropped when you’re walking home through the dark streets.
TimeLine’s Theater’s production of THE LIFESPAN OF A FACT by Jeremy Kareken, David Murrell, and Gordon Farrell, based on the book by John D’Agata and Jim Fingal, directed by Mechelle Moe ran from November 1 to December 23, 2023.
