Daniel Radcliffe gets his facts straight
They’re Broadway’s new odd couple: an eager-beaver fact-checker and an arrogant author who treats the truth like Silly Putty.
That’s the setup for “The Lifespan of a Fact,” the so-so sitcom that opened Thursday and whose biggest bragging right is bringing Daniel Radcliffe back to Broadway for the fourth time in 10 years. With Harry Potter now in his rearview, the 29-year-old English actor has proven himself a pro, whether tackling drama (“Equus,” “The Cripple of Inishmaan”), a musical (“How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying”) and, now, comedy.
The former boy wizard is on his game here as Jim Fingal, a magazine intern recruited by a top editor, Emily (Cherry Jones), to confirm the accuracy of an article by John D’Agata (Bobby Cannavale). John is a writer who prizes style above facts, and he won’t be questioned about those — least of all by a lowly drone.
Sparks fly against a looming print deadline (running it online apparently isn’t an option) and a dilemma: Can Emily release the story, about a Las Vegas suicide, riddled with inaccuracies?
The play is adapted from a 2012 book by the real D’Agata and Fingal, based on their five-plus-year backand-forth correspondence about the Sin City saga and the gap between facts and poetic license. You don’t have to squint to see the connection to today’s conversations about fake news and misleading memoirs like “A Million Little Pieces.”
Truth-telling is a worthy subject, if potentially academic and, in the case of “Lifespan,” a bit inside publishing. Realizing that, playwrights Jeremy Kareken, David Murrell and Gordon Farrell ratcheted up the stakes by pruning the timeline to five days for a thriller-like framework. The verbal volleys can be fun, but some of the action seems silly and contrived: When Jim somehow ends up hiding in a closet, it’s like something out of a “Three’s Company” episode. More vexing is that the show expects us to accept John’s story as a timely, topical gamechanger. But why? It’s about a boy’s suicide in a soulless city. Sad, but not groundbreaking.
Director Leigh Silverman’s production zips along as it moves from glossy office to humble home. Better still are the actors, all of whom shine.
Jim is the most fleshed-out character. As he morphs from earnest to rabidly overzealous, a bearded, bed-headed Radcliffe delivers a deft, deliciously sly comic performance. Alongside Cannavale’s strapping John, he looks puny, an underdog in every way.
Cannavale has less to work with, but digs deep and gets beyond John’s puffy self-importance to find something poignant.
Jones, ever indispensable, adds heaps of humor as the voice of reason. That’s something we need more of — and that’s a fact.