What's Up - Your guide to what's happening in Fayetteville, AR this week!
Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/1353262
BECCA MARTIN-BROWN NWA Democrat-Gazette I t was a dark and stormy night, and the rolling thunder and flashes of lightning added weight to the intense portrayal of life and death at the Arkansas Public Theatre's rehearsal of "The Lifespan of a Fact." Only some of that sentence is factual, however. Rehearsal actually happened on a pleasant and breezy spring Monday with just a few clouds in the sky. And the play is certainly thought- provoking and dramatic, but perhaps not a matter of life or death. Does it matter that in order to set the mood, the writer — in this case me — embellished a little? In the case of John D'Agata's essay on the suicide of 16-year-old Levi Presley, does it matter whether the bricks of the building he jumped from were brown or red? Does it matter if he fell for eight seconds or nine? Or how many other people died that day? Or does it matter more that the author sat with the victim's family, walked the route he would have taken to his death and wants desperately to make Levi Presley's life mean something? That's the premise of "The Lifespan of a Fact," based on the true story of D'Agata's essay "What Happens There"; a compulsive fact checker named Jim Fingal; and an editor, Emily Penrose, who has to choose whether to let small but niggling misstatements of fact get in the way of a story that might save her precariously balanced magazine — and maybe even change the world. The first thing D'Agata, who is the M.F. Carpenter Professor of English and director of the Nonfiction Writing Program at the University of Iowa, wants you to know is this: "The 'John' and 'Jim' in both the play and the book are characters. They are merely versions of the real guys — who are actually friends!" The second thing he wants to say is that in real life, facts matter. In storytelling, maybe not so much. "Back in the early 2000s, Jim and I were just trying to write about a nerdy literary issue that's been discussed within the nonfiction world for years," D'Agata says in email. "I've always personally believed that some forms of nonfiction — like personal essays and intimate cultural explorations — have the same license to take liberties with some facts in a story in order to better MARCH 21-27, 2021 WHAT'S UP! 3 FAQ 'The Lifespan of a Fact' WHEN — 8 p.m. March 26-27; 2 p.m. March 28; 8 p.m. April 1-3 WHERE — Arkansas Public Theatre at the Victory in Rogers COST — Tickets start at $10 INFO — 631-8988 or arkansaspublictheatre.org COVER STORY See Lifespan Page 4 Truth Or Consequences? APT drama argues facts versus substance Magazine editor Emily Primrose (played by Andria Lickfelt) assigns Jim Fingal (Tanner Pittman) to fact check an essay she thinks will be a huge success in the Arkansas Public Theatre production of "The Lifespan of a Fact." (Courtesy Photo/Chad Wigington for APT) John D'Agata