Broadway Review: ‘The Lifespan of a Fact’

Harry Potter had no sense of humor whatsoever, but Daniel Radcliffe proves to be a master of comedy in “The Lifespan of a Fact,” the brainy Broadway play that Jeremy Kareken, David Murrell and Gordon Farrell adapted from a magazine article — better described, perhaps, as that classier literary form, the Essay — and a subsequent book by John D’Agata and Jim Fingal.

Radcliffe plays Jim Fingal (yes, the very one), a nerdy fact-checker for a struggling literary magazine run by Emily Penrose, played by Cherry Jones in tower-of-strength style. Like literary magazines everywhere, this one is reeling from tanking ad sales, shrinking circulation and a geriatric readership. But salvation beckons in the form of a potentially sensational article — make that an Essay — by John D’Agata, a ferociously talented writer played to the hilt by the ferociously talented Bobby Cannavale.