Review: THE LIFESPAN OF A FACT At Rubicon Theatre Company

“The Lifespan of A Fact,” now playing at the Rubicon Theatre Company in Ventura, is a gem of a production. The characters all have the noblest of motives–to tell a compelling story faithfully. They have conflicting values about what the truth means. Therein lies the drama.

In the glossy office of a New York City Editor-in-Chief for an equally glossy magazine, Emily Penrose (played with riveting realism by Inger Tudor) needs an ace fact-checker for an article about the death by suicide of a teenager in Las Vegas. She needs someone quick so she taps one of the magazine’s bright young interns, Jim Fingal (Jonah Robinson), for the task. The article’s prestigious author, John D’Agata (Ron Bottitta), has a reputation for bending the truth. Jim needs to be vigilant, but he must also be speedy because there’s a three-day deadline. 

Immediately after receiving the assignment, it becomes apparent that the article is laden with lies, or, if you prefer, teeming with equivocations or minor distortions of facts shaped as clay to sculpt a portrait of a larger truth. At first, the printing deadline is in jeopardy, and then in a dramatic escalation of the conflict, everyone’s values and characters are tested. This production depicts the consequences of actions and decisions with the dimensions of Greek tragedy. 

Ron Bottitta portrays the character of John D’Agata with the satisfyingly formidable presence of a great writer. And Jonah Robinson as Jim Fingal plays the earnest energies of the fact-checker replete with likability and thoroughly un-smug about having unmasked the deceptions and dodges them in the great writer’s otherwise moving essay. As the audience, we are drawn into the mediating position held by the editor Emily Penrose and Inger Tudor who depicts her agonizing choice poignantly and quietly.

The play will stay with you long after you’ve gone home. 

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