IT'S hard to tell fact from fiction these days when social media makes it possible for individuals to create fake online personas with ease and to potentially reach millions with a single tweet or post.
For most of us, telling a few untruths turn out to be relatively small misdemeanours which do not land us into trouble. But what happens when a lie directly impacts on other people, even an entire community?
That's the premise for the new dark comedy drama Here We Lie, written and directed by Belfast actor and physical theatre performer Patrick J O'Reilly.
In the all-female production from Rawlife Theatre Company, which was behind last year’s hugely successful As the Tide Ebbs, the play stars Rosie McCleland, Louis Matthews, (Sinners), Claire Connor, Bernadette Brown and Antoinette Morelli at the Lyric Theatre from June 22 (it is also at the Craic Theatre, Coalisland and Cushendall Golf Glub, on June 20 and 21 respectively).
The piece evolves around Sharon (Rosie McClelland) whose world is turned upside down when – in order to keep her unfaithful husband Brian (Antoinette Morelli) – she naively says something that leads him to believe she's dying.
Word soon spreads around the fictional town of Loughsea in the north, and as the big-hearted townsfolk rally around to create a charity foundation in her name, the impact of her lie slowly causes people to become suspicious and fearful, and further lies only lead to further explosive consequences.
O'Reilly, a stalwart of Belfast's drama scene who's originally from Cavan won the Stewart Parker BBC Radio Drama Award for his play The Weein in 2010. He was appointed artistic director for Tinderbox Theatre Company last year and has created hugely popular local pantomimes.
He explains: "I've based the play very much on lies and people's fears and looking at the consequences on people when you tell a lie. I think it fits the political arena at the moment, both with Donald Trump and his fake news, and what's happening with Brexit, and Stormont – as, who can we really believe right now?
"The play asks what happens when we aware that something is a lie. Do we tell the truth or do we continue with the lie? And it gets quite dark.
"It's set in a supermarket in a town, which is a place were people come to have a good gossip about what others are doing. Of course, the fact that this woman Sharon is dying gets talked about. Through social media and news media, the town gets very famous for raising the money. Suddenly, her world gets taken over by her lie."
O'Reilly wrote Here We Lie in 2011 "when there was a lot of news coverage on the Shannon Matthews abduction case, where it was actually the mum who had hidden her little girl away and the whole community rallied around to try and find her and support the family only to find out it was a lie".
"I remember being really intrigued by that in the sense of that power that we have by what we say and what effect it can have," he says. "I've also studied physical theatre in Paris and I was really interested in learning about body language and how can you really tell when someone is lying. In particular for this play, I was really interested in what happens when the lie becomes increasingly bigger and the person gets trapped in that lie."
He produced a trailer for YouTube at Forestside Shopping Centre where the women can be seen menacingly chasing another woman down shopping aisles; rather bizarrely, all wearing see-though plastic raincoats that haven't been seen since the 70s.
"I had them in see-through raincoats as the play is all about concealment and when you can see something but also see through it," O'Reilly explains. "We all lie, that’s the point of the play, whether it’s a small lie or not, so I suppose the women in the see-through coats show their transparency."
Here We Lie is the first play in a trilogy that O'Reilly is developing, as well as another plan called The Man Who Falls To Pieces for Tinderbox early next year, which highlights mental health issues for a man who literally falls to pieces.
:: For tickets to the Lyric Belfast production, visit www.lyrictheatre.co.uk
