In ‘Lifespan of a Fact,’ Ryan Ball looks for truth
Ryan Ball is interested in the truth. So is the play “The Lifespan of a Fact,” which makes its local premiere Sept. 11 in a production by The Ensemble Company at Penguin Point Productions in Oviedo.
“I prefer to work in truth,” says Ball. “As an actor, truth is super-important.”
In the comedy, which had a Broadway run in 2018, truth is up for debate. Ball plays Jim Fingal, a young magazine factchecker who was embodied by “Harry Potter” star Daniel Radcliffe on Broadway.
In the course of his duties, Jim finds that a powerful essay by a talented writer is riddled with factual errors. They don’t necessarily change the point of the essay — but they are not, strictly speaking, accurate. Does it really matter if the overall tone of the article is truthful?
“That’s one of the scary things that the play argues,” Ball says. “It doesn’t really come to a conclusion: That’s up to the audience to decide.”
There’s no question, audience members will have an opinion with this era’s cries of “fake news” as misinformation floods the internet and leaders ignore scientific facts.
“It’s impossible not to see it in today’s time with the onslaught of information we’re getting from so many sources,” Ball says.
He has heard that things used to be simpler — at least in the rural area he hails from.
“In the old times, you had your daily newspaper and the guy at the general store who knew everything that happened,” he says with a laugh. “Well, I’m from North Carolina, I’m from the country.”
Another timely factor: The COVID-19 pandemic.
The production team has been taking coronavirus precautions, rehearsing online at first — which was unexpectedly helpful.
“We were able to focus more closely on the text without the distractions that can happen in inperson situations,” says Ball, who also performed in The Ensemble Company’s productions of “The Lion in Winter” and “The Santaland Diaries.”
With only a three-person cast, “The Lifespan of a Fact” is well-suited for a pandemic performance.
“The action of the play is not very intimate,” Ball
says. “It happens to work for our relationships that we spend a lot of time apart while onstage.”
Audience members will be socially distanced in their seats and required to wear masks.
Ball’s excited to bring a contemporary premiere to Central Florida theatergoers.
“It’s a little more challenging” to present something unfamiliar, he says. “It’s a lot of responsibility. This interaction will flavor their impression of the show forever.”
He thinks audiences will find plenty to latch onto. Underlying the weighty topic of what is truth is an equally relatable story about a job that is spiraling out of control as Jim digs in his heels over his principles.
“He’s striving to get that appreciation and acknowledgment from his boss.
He’s expected to figure this out,” Ball says of his character. “He wants to please his supervisor, but he has all these obstacles in his way. Everybody has been through that.”
In the play, Jim ends up going “above and beyond,” as Ball puts it, to the extreme. He flies across the country to confront the writer (played by Ensemble Company artistic director Matthew MacDermid) at his home.
“That’s too much, it goes beyond what he should be doing,” Ball says — but he understands why his character thinks that seeing his beliefs through to the end is the right thing.
“That person is probably me” in real life, Ball says. “Maybe that’s why I don’t have an issue with it.”