"The Truth" at the Black Box Theatre -- August 15 through 31.
Friday, August 16, through Saturday, August 31
The Black Box Theatre, 1623 Fifth Avenue, Moline IL
Written by French playwright Florian Zeller and adapted by British playwright Christopher Hampton – the pair who won Academy Awards for their screenplay to 2020's Anthony Hopkins drama The Father – the four-person comedy The Truth makes its debut at Moline's Black Box Theatre from August 15 through 31. But this isn't merely the 2016 play's venue debut, nor its Quad Cities debut, nor its Midwestern debut. It's the show's United States debut, with Black Box co-founder and artistic director Lora Adams the first person in the U.S. to receive the rights to this critically acclaimed theatre piece.
“Believe me, no one was more surprised than I was,” says Adams. And why wouldn't she be surprised? She had been attempting to secure those licensing rights, without previous success, for years.
With The Truth's Black Box presentation directed by Bradley Robert Jensen and featuring an ensemble composed of Ann Keeney Grafft, Jonathan Grafft, Matt Walsh, and Adams herself, Zeller's play is described as “a pacy comedy that pictures marriage and male friendship as a maze of deception. Vain and fidgety Michel is having an affair with Alice, the elegant wife of his unemployed friend Paul. But when his own wife Laurence starts to pose tricky questions, we sense he's not the only character with an agenda.”
For her part, Adams calls this tale of friendship, suspicion, and deceit “a French farce … but not a farce in the slamming-of-the-doors kind of way.” As such, it's a stage work in a completely different vein from Zeller's wrenching dementia drama The Father and troubled-teen tragedy The Son – another play adapted for film, this time in 2022, by Zeller and Hampton. “I think that's one of the reasons it hasn't been performed in a lot of different places,” Adams says. “It doesn't fit within the realm of those pieces of writing.”
The Truth, however, is a play that Adams has adored ever since seeing an overseas production of it at Wyndham's Theatre in 2016.
“I was in London on my own,” she says, “and I went to see this, and the first thing that did it for me was that there was no curtain on the stage, so I could just look at the set. My first thought was, 'Oh my gosh, that set would fit perfectly in my venue!' Even before I'd heard a word spoken. But then it started, and the folks around me were all couples, and it was very interesting to talk with some of them afterward. Because you could hear the women laugh at certain things and hear the men laugh at other things.
“And I really liked the writing,” Adams continues. “You know, you can't really act your way out of bad writing. You can do a serviceable show, but it always comes down to the writing. And I just thought this show was so cleverly written. That was really the thing that did it for me: It was smart writing. One of the things I try to do at the Black Box is to find those kinds of pieces.”
Yet after the Black Box Theatre opened in January of 2017, Adams discovered that getting the rights to produce The Truth in her new venue wasn't going to be easy. In actuality, it appeared impossible.
Regarding North American licensing companies, Adams says, “I started looking around with the usual suspects: MTI, Concord, Dramatists. All of those places. Nobody had the play. So then I went back to my old program for The Truth, and ultimately, I was able to find the literary agent of Florian Zeller. So when I found that, I sent an e-mail. I was just trying to explain who I was, and my little theatre, and that sort of thing – basically, 'Can I get the rights to do this show?' And their initial response was 'no.'” She laughs. “They were really nice about it, but it wasn't available to be produced anywhere. Full stop.
“But every once in a while,” she continues, “like every six months, I would sort of let them know I was still alive and that my theatre was still alive. And finally, because you're always trying to find 'the angle,' and I had always been sending e-mails representing the theatre and not myself, I wrote them and just said, 'I have been a professional actress, I've been a member of Actors Equity,' and all those sorts of things. And then they wrote me back and said, 'Send us your résumé and a list of other people you might want to be involved.'
“So I sent some names along with some reviews of shows we've done, I said we tended to do pieces that hadn't really been produced in the area, et cetera. I was trying to really lay the groundwork for why my little 60-seat theatre should do the show. And after that, they said yes, I could produce it.”
With another laugh, Adams says, “Then they sent the contract. And I have to tell you – you get a contract and it has Florian Zeller's name on it, and it's got Christopher Hampton's name on it, and it's got your name and the Black Box Theatre on it, and you're kind of like, 'I'm playing with the big boys now!' It was really kind of a trip. Really surreal. And they made it very affordable to me. I couldn't be more grateful.”
Given The Truth's five-star reviews by London's The Observer and The Times, which respectively call Zeller's comedy “a must-see show” and “unbelievably good,” theatre-goers are likely to be grateful, too. And with the team that she and director Jensen have amassed, Adams says she's thrilled that area audiences will be among the first in North America to see this lauded stage piece.
“I've known Bradley for as long as he's been in the area,” says Adams. “He's very talented and has a very good work ethic. And Matt and Ann and Jonathan are just extremely wonderful people. That's the main thing about this group: I know them all, and I like them all, and I know I can trust them. That's so important. Knowing that I can trust everyone involved makes it easy for me.
“I hope that people support us,” she continues. “I'm just tickled that we're able to bring this show here. But really: Support everybody, because we have a really vibrant theatre community, and a performance community, here in the Quad Cities. There's always something going on. And I think it's so important that we all lift each other up.”
The Truth will be performed in Moline from August 15 through 31, with performances on Fridays and Saturdays at 7:30 p.m., Sundays at 2 p.m., and an added Thursday performance on August 29 at 7:30 p.m. Admission is $16, and for more information and tickets, call (563)284-2350 and visit TheBlackBoxTheatre.com.
