The lifespan of an artform

Forward Theater Company weathers the pandemic by connecting in new ways

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When you buy a ticket to Forward Theater’s newest play, The Lifespan of a Fact, it feels almost normal. For a moment, I could pretend I was actually going somewhere, perhaps with people, to sit among strangers, to see a play. The play would have involved people being in close proximity, talking, and in the case of this play, arguing, and (now that we have to think about it) spewing aerosols.

I had to go there. Because the play is, at its core, about the truth (more on that later). And the truth is, while everyone who is able to muster it puts on a brave face and marches into the unknown, we theatergoers (and theater-makers) can’t pretend that things are the same. I have seen many of Forward’s plays. And I’ve never seen anything like this. It’s an extraordinary play, based on an extraordinary book, based on an extraordinary essay — and staged under extraordinary circumstances.

Forward is a regional theater company, and one of the few professional ones here in Madison. When it became clear that the pandemic was going to shut down live theater for a significant time, the folks at Forward announced that they were going to honor their contracts with all the artists who they hired to design and perform this season.

That’s no small thing, given the economic crisis unfolding around us. At the very least, most artists are living in a state of heightened anxiety about the future. Others are in a full-blown panic. With a few exceptions, a month of canceled gigs has become six. And the numbers keep rising. Actors’ Equity, the union that represents many of Forward’s performers, will not allow its members to perform or rehearse in person when it could endanger their lives. And then last week, our national health guru, Dr. Anthony Fauci, announced that it could be a year from the introduction of an effective vaccine before we could feel comfortable going maskless to a theater. How long will that be? Nobody really knows. 

I am not reviewing Lifespan of a Fact in the traditional sense (theater critic Gwendolyn Rice plans to do that on her blog.) Especially after seeing the play, I am more interested in the adaptations the company made to produce it — and the concept of survival. Anyway, if I were reviewing, what would I compare it to? Forward’s other works? The experiments of other regional companies? Certainly not television or film. 

I want you, if you have $10-$40 available, to buy a ticket to the show. It will give you lots to think about, and doing so rewards the creativity and tenacity of the artists who had to learn fresh skills and explore entire new realms. Watch the “play” as I did, with a sense of appreciation for folks who are making do.

After you buy the ticket, you gain access to the “virtual lobby,” where wonders await. I tuned in a couple of minutes before opening night on Sept. 11. First I watched a charming video, “Fixing with Ben,” narrated by a youngster giving tech advice on how to stream the show. Then I caught the very end of an ebullient pre-show Zoom where all of us in our little boxes were told to await the stage manager calling “places.” It’s an age-old theater convention: The stage manager says “places” and the actors respond, “Thank you, places.” We all did it together, and it was the first time I felt my eyes well up: I felt like I was starting the show.

That’s one of the special touches that made it a very Forward experience. The company has a strong commitment to local involvement and audience development. They host a talkback after every damn show. Often you get personal lobby greetings from members of the company, including Jen Uphoff Gray, the artistic director.

Once in the virtual lobby, I watched a pre-recorded pre-show lecture by Karen Moeller, the company’s artistic associate, explaining the origins of the play and giving us a glimpse into the process of creating it. Moeller went all out in researching the play; she made some significant discoveries along the way, which I will not spoil here. I also found a podcast, a schedule of live talkbacks, and a virtual Playbill.

I was ready to click on “Watch the Show,” but lo and behold, instead of looking at a stage, I was suddenly in the familiar and empty Overture lobby, following the camera down the marble staircase where the Forward logo is projected, and down into the pink carpeted lobby outside the Playhouse where Forward always performs. That’s where Celia Klehr, the house manager, looked at the camera, pulled down a mask, and offered a bittersweet greeting. Normally, there would be hugs and handshakes, reconnecting with theater pals. The Joni Mitchell lyric — “You don’t know what you’ve got ’til it’s gone” — spins through my head. 

This introduction to the play is both a comfort and a reminder of how COVID-19 takes us out of our comfort zones. Scott Haden, the company’s communications guy, is a talented performer in his own right, but he usually facilitates an interview with a director, an actor, or someone else on the artistic team. But when I talk to Haden on the phone, he has plenty to say. He took on a lot to help coordinate this monumental technical achievement, and is responsible for those extras that make us feel like we are part of the Forward “family,” even though we are physically separate. 

“We want to make it as robust and entertaining an experience as possible, and to embrace the former theater experience as much as we can,” says Haden. “I think the show is going to be spectacular, but we're hoping that anyone who buys a ticket — or our subscribers — that when they do commit to seeing the show they still feel like they're coming to Forward Theater. That's the most important thing for us.”

Speaking of subscribers, Haden mentions that none of this would be possible without the steadfast support of funders and subscribers. Eighty percent of Forward’s season subscribers renewed, even though they knew the company’s ability to stage live shows was in jeopardy. He says the staff participates in weekly roundtables with theater groups around the country that are trying to cope with the loss of their main sources of revenue. “When I tell people that experience, they're just dumbstruck that we had such an incredible support,” says Haden. “Even though we said we're not sure what the next season is going to be, our subscribers held on.”

The Forward team arrived at the technical solution of pre-recording actors in their separate spaces after a long spring and summer of watching what other companies were doing. They knew they did not want to do live Zoom performances — too many technical wild cards. “We brainstormed all summer long on how we could create a system that would allow the actors to see their fellow actors, but then also be able to record themselves in a manner that had the highest resolution quality and with decent sound,” says Haden. “And so we came up with this wild rig for people.” 

The rig was inspired by American Idol, which began sending iPhones and basic lighting equipment to contestants, who would record themselves and then upload videos of their home performances. Forward invested in iPhones, tripods, microphones and lighting. They invited the cast and crew to a Milwaukee park where they all picked up equipment and packets explaining how to use it. “It really was a collaboration of theater makers and visual and video artists,” says Haden, adding that the company also provided uniform backdrops and hosted virtual costume fittings. 

It took an extraordinary amount of work to create The Lifespan of a Fact, and to the company’s credit, much of it is not visible when you sit down to watch it. The result is not exactly theater, not quite film. The play is well-suited to this format because it’s not so much about physical interaction (although there is some, and it’s less engaging without it) but more about ideas.

The three characters in Lifespan are an essayist (not a journalist!), an editor and a fact checker. The play was written by Jeremy Kareken, David Murrell, and Gordon Farrell. It opened on Broadway in 2018 and starred Bobby Cannavale as the writer, Cherry Jones as the editor, and Daniel Radcliffe (Harry Potter!) as the fact checker. It is loosely based on the 2012 book co-written by John D'Agata and Jim Fingal in which the two men recount their seven-year journey of debating the facts in a magazine cover story (D’Agata insists it is an essay, not an article!). Harper’s Magazine commissioned the piece and then rejected it; in 2010 D’Agata’s “What Happens There” was published by The Believer. 

D’Agata (played by the wonderfully irascible Michael Herold) has written an eloquent examination of the life and death of Levi Presley, who jumped off a 1,149-foot-tall building in Las Vegas. A tech-savvy magazine intern, Jim Fingal (James Carrington) is assigned to fact check the story on a tight deadline. He goes down the rabbit hole, scouring online sites, visiting sources in person, and discovering enough inconsistencies to fill a 100-plus-page spreadsheet. The editor (a determined Emily Penrose) needs the finished piece to meet the magazine’s print deadline. While she referees, the two men spar over such things as the mischaracterization of another suicide on the same day, the number of seconds it took for the young man to fall to his death, and how many cars consitute a traffic jam. If some of the details in the piece are squishy, or even manufactured, it is, according to D'Agata, because they serve the essence of the story. What matters is that Las Vegas has the highest suicide rate in the nation. A young man has died, and the writer wants to honor him. 

It’s heady material, and the actors do yeoman’s work, connecting as best as they can without being in the same physical space. They can’t look each other in the eye. And no matter what tricks the camera can do, it’s no substitute for the ineffable energy that exists between actors — and between actors and audience. I miss it, and I know they do, too.

I spoke to James Carrington, who plays Jim Fingal, hours before The Lifespan of a Fact “opened.” The show will run through Sept. 27. In a phone conversation he admits that the process of making the play was “really weird.” Usually, opening night is just the beginning of a several week run where a show will settle in and evolve. “It’s relieving, and also very nerve-wracking,” says Carrington. “You make something and you just send it out to the world, hoping that people like it.

“I’m not a film actor,” says Carrington, “It's a completely different skill.” He says he had to learn about camera work, lighting and makeup. “You have to be conscious of, like, 50 details while trying to act. It was very scary, but everyone kind of just came together. This is not what any of us is used to, so knowing that we had the support of the theater really helped me.”

Watching The Lifespan of a Fact in my darkened living room reminds me of why good storytelling matters. It makes me happy to know that Forward’s audience — and audiences around the country — are debating the importance of facts, asking what they mean, and who decides. We have so many salient examples of why the truth is important in every day’s headlines. I think D'Agata and Fingal knew exactly what they were doing when they wrote their book. 

As with so many of the pieces I’ve written on the arts during the COVID-19 pandemic, talking to the artists reminds me of this truth: We are in this together. The Forward family is figuring out how to produce a play when they can’t do it the way they always have. Forward’s audience is sticking with them as they figure it out.

This flexibility and resilience is what will pull us through. As Carrington says, “Actors depend on other people: our directors, our playwrights, our stage managers, our dressers and designers. But this has really forced us to work together in a brand new way. Something I really took away from all this is this sense of community within theater artists.”

Nothing will be the same. But it will get better. 

“Artists are going to do our jobs,” says Carrington. “Storytelling has been around for thousands of years. It’s not going to go away now. It's going to be different. It's going to be harder. And it's going to be in a way that we may not really expect or know how to do. But at the end of the day, we're going to tell stories to make sure that people are entertained and educated at the same time, no matter what.”