“There used to be a genre of Broadway comedy meant to be topical but not emotional...But ‘The Lifespan of a Fact’ clearly wants to be more than that, even if its raw material isn’t strong enough for drama...'Terrifically engaging but not as smart as it thinks.' That this doesn’t much matter as the play pingpongs along is the result of a terrific comic staging by Leigh Silverman. With its cast, its dead-on timing...it would probably nail its laughs even without the dialogue."
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“A quick and entertaining play that makes a good case for the value of truth...If Fingal gets the upper hand...it’s partly thanks to Radcliffe’s appeal as an actor. His Fingal may be a persnickity fussbudget with a dubious sense of which battles to pick, but his bite is the bite of an underdog...Cannavale’s D’Agata, by contrast, is arrogant and dismissive, and his resistance to Fingal’s critiques has an undercurrent of vanity...Like most issue plays, this one ends on a note of ambiguity.”
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"Directed with a light touch and a sense for gradual crescendo...and constructed with elegance and precision on all fronts...’The Lifespan of a Fact’ gives you the satisfying rush of a good mystery or a crossword puzzle. Your brain gets to go the gym for 90 minutes. But it doesn’t get to go home feeling pumped and complacent. Instead, in a way that’s both invigorating and unsettling, the show leaves you hanging. It suspends you...and challenges you to find your own way out.”
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"Thus are the battle lines drawn: soulful artist vs. nitpicking pedant, in John’s view; amoral fabricator vs. ethical realist, in Jim’s...For such a conceit to work, we have to believe in the merit of the thing that is in dispute. Is one essay really worth all this fuss?...As the play goes on, and its initially sharp comedy dulls into a repetitive deadlock, it becomes clear that John is a martyr not to his notion of poetic truth but to the demands of his paper-thin writerly pride."
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“For most of its length, this admirably compact play is a rib-bustingly funny farce in which things go from very bad to far worse in nothing flat. Toward the end, though, Messrs. Kareken, Murrell and Farrell skillfully modulate into a darker key...While you may not buy the surprise ending...you’ll like everything else about ‘The Lifespan of a Fact’, including the letter-perfect acting, Silverman’s snappy direction and Mimi Lien’s quick-change set.”
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“A new based-on-reality play starring a totally-committed triumvirate...poses some big questions about small truths. Certainly the top-grade quality of the cast has us hoping for answers, or at least a rousing good yarn. There’s a little disappointed on both fronts...How to transfigure this years-long intellectual adventure into a 90-minute stage drama?...That’s a puzzle that playwrights Jeremy Kareken, David Murrell and Gordon Farrell haven’t solved. "
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“A fun debate play and commercial catnip for the brain, the kind of old-school, celebrity-friendly show you can argue about over late-night pasta without anyone's face landing in the sauce. It won't be a Pulitzer contender nor around forever, but it’s smart and very lively...This is a play about an essay in a magazine, but it's also a show about the sorry state of journalism, and maybe of a nation...It's a self-aware comedy."
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“Radcliffe proves to be a master of comedy in ‘The Lifespan of a Fact’... If we were living through a different moment in time, the writer’s fabricated but emotionally wrenching 'truth' would easily outweigh the fact-checker’s chilly reality of events. But with the leader of our nation stomping on truth as we know it, and the very essence of reality imperiled by political fact-stretchers, the debate at the heart of this play transcends comedy and demands serious attention."
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