photo by: Theatre Lawrence

Theatre Lawrence's production of "The Lifespan of a Fact" stars, from left, Noah Dittmer, Kimberly O'Brien and Ryan Hamlin.

Long before the Trump administration gave rise to the phrases “fake news” and “alternative facts,” the squishy — and often satiric — concepts of “truthiness” and “my truth” were adrift in the culture, denoting the quality of appearing to be true, or feeling true, while not necessarily being objective fact.

And long before those notions, there were truths that were famously held to be “self-evident” — at least in certain parts of the world.

The nature of truth — and the power it wields — has captivated people forever, and that’s one of the truths that drew Piet Knetsch, who just turned 80, to the challenge of directing Theatre Lawrence’s latest production, “The Lifespan of a Fact.”

“I typically do whatever the serious piece is” during Theatre Lawrence’s season, said Knetsch, who has been directing at the community theater since 1996. Last year, he directed the psychological thriller “The Girl on the Train,” and in 2020 “Yours, Anne,” a musical adaptation of Anne Frank’s “Diary of a Young Girl.” He has also helmed productions of Tennessee Williams’ major plays, among dozens of others.

But while “Lifespan” has serious subject matter, it also has a hefty dose of humor, even “adult” humor.

“It’s a comedy-drama,” Knetsch says of the show, which is about the struggle between an essayist whose aim is essentially narrative “truthiness” and a young fact-checker who insists on cold, hard accuracy.

“It certainly has very serious intent in terms of messaging, but it does so with some light-heartedness,” Knetsch says. “… It’s a difficult subject for a play to tackle — the issue of truth vs. falsehood and what constitutes truth. It’s a challenging topic, to be sure, but also I think a very timely one.”

The play “Lifespan,” written by Jeremy Kareken, David Murrell and Gordon Farrell, was based on a 2012 book co-written by John D’Agata and Jim Fingal — a real essayist and fact-checker, respectively.

D’Agata and Fingal’s book is about their experience working together on D’Agata’s 2003 essay “What Happens There,” which is about a teenage suicide in Las Vegas. D’Agata’s essay was originally commissioned by Harper’s Magazine, which opted against publishing the piece because it appeared more literary than journalistic. Another magazine, The Believer, ultimately published the essay after it was fact-checked by Fingal.

The play, a dramatization of the book, centers on the many arguments D’Agata (played by Ryan Hamlin) and Fingal (played by Noah Dittmer) have about accuracy — were certain bricks red or brown? Did someone fall for eight seconds or nine seconds before dying? Is it OK to say that someone from Las Vegas is a Southerner if it highlights a bigger truth in the story? How do you know something happened if you didn’t see it for yourself? When does “poetic license” become outright deception?

In all, D’Agata’s 15-page essay produces more than 100 pages of fact-checking concerns for Fingal, and the two battle it out over several days, with the essayist — he insists he’s not a journalist — advocating for bending inconvenient facts to shape a larger, more beautiful “truth” and the fact-checker championing the verifiable, unvarnished realities.

Mediating the dispute is the editor Emily Penrose, played by Kimberly O’Brien.

How does she decide who wins? O’Brien, speaking like the retired English teacher that she is, won’t give the plot away — you have to watch for yourself — but she does say that she was so “completely moved” by the show, which she had seen in Kansas City, that she decided to try out for the role. (Friday’s opening will be her acting debut at Theatre Lawrence, though theater regulars might recognize her name as the stage manager for shows like “Cinderella” and “Hello, Dolly!”).

“My particular love is language and rhetoric,” says O’Brien, who taught at Lawrence High School for 20 years, “and the story just resonates with the importance of people understanding the power of words and language.”

In discussing the timeliness of the production, O’Brien and Knetsch both mention the widespread acceptance in American society of made-up nonsense.

“We live in an age of conspiracy theories,” O’Brien says, “and the play speaks to how easy it is to fabricate those and how important it is for consumers of information to be critical of the information they receive.”

Though the play itself deals in more subtle forms of misinformation than outright conspiracy theories, “it hints at the fact that the manipulation of facts is what laid the groundwork for (those theories),” O’Brien says.

In addition to the three actors’ performances, Knetsch is excited for audiences to experience the original music that Lawrence artist Karl Ramberg composed and plays live during the show.

“It’s quite, quite remarkable what Karl does,” he says.

“The Lifespan of a Fact” is scheduled to open Friday at Theatre Lawrence, 4660 Bauer Farm Drive, and will have multiple performances through Jan. 29. For information about tickets, call 785-843-SHOW (7469) or go online at theatrelawrence.com.