Who cares that the news media is full of shit? Not playwright Glen Merzer.

In 1989, NBC News orchestrated a series of interviews with Roger Sizemore, an "eyewitness" of the U.S. invasion of Panama. But according to a guy named Brian Seifert, Roger Sizemore was actually him, pretending for three early-morning live broadcasts that he was reporting from a Panama hotel when he was really at home, talking to Tom Brokaw while sprawled on a living room couch. This fascinating story of a media hoax has gone unreported, despite a voice analysis showing that Sizemore was Seifert.

But although Merzer's play is set in the context of this hoax, that's not really what the play is about. In fact, The Sizemore Interviews--having its world premiere at Annex Theatre--is a "work of fiction," according to Merzer. It's about a couple, Brian (Tim Gouran) and Cindy (Corey Quigley), struggling with marital problems. Brian (obviously representing Seifert, though the playbill doesn't list his last name) thinks that Cindy is afraid to face the truth about the hoax, and Cindy thinks Brian is too obsessed with it. Ironically, the hoax is the only reality-based part of the play.

Placing the NBC hoax in the context of a rocky marriage winds up saying little more than what people already suspect about the shallow TV news media. The play promises to lift the curtain veiling the mainstream news media's sleaziness, but when the curtain goes up, Brian is standing there representing the half-asleep American news-watching public. Merzer implies that a desire for fame compels Americans (à la Seifert) to become complicit in the cult of personality we claim to hate. Moreover, it seems the reason the news feeds us stupid human-interest stories is that we want to believe this crap. The play's NBC staffer Kayla (Roberta Plonski) says, "If we want to be lied to, it's not really a lie." Well, it really is a lie. But we're the lame asses who believe it.

News reporter Allie Holly-Gottlieb and theater reviewer Rebecca Brown saw this production together.

Rebecca: "Allie, do you ever make up stuff for the news? Did you pick up any interview techniques from this play?"

Allie: "I expected to have to answer for my fraudulent kind in this play review. As it turns out, despite being portrayed as a group of lying dimwits, news reporters weren't really the target. But I don't make up concepts or quotes. Sometimes I say what sources don't--for example, when they're full of shit, I may believe that element figures into the story. I respect Brokaw for only asking questions he knows the answers to (with the possible exception of that curve ball he threw in when he asked Brian what time it was in Panama). Knowing the likely answers ahead of time is a good way to keep the reins on your interview. Basically, I chose to write news so I didn't have to make up stories. Did you like the play? The other day, someone complained to me that theater reviewers often neglect to say whether or not they liked what they're reviewing."

Rebecca: "Well, I was totally fascinated by the material of the play--the story of Brian Seifert. And I liked some of the writing. But in the playwright's note, Merzer talks about first trying to tell this story as journalism and getting no response, and then trying to do it as a play. I'm glad the play exists as a vehicle to get this amazing material out, but I must say the 'extra' stuff, the stuff that makes this a 'play,' weakens the material. The love story/conflict between Seifert and his wife reeks of the Hollywood need to add a little irrelevant romance. Though Quigley is believable as the wife at the end of tolerating her wiggy husband's eccentricities, Gouran as Brian is a bit too 'acting class.' His nervy mannerisms never let up: impassioned stuttering, wringing of hands, scratching himself. Clearly Gouran can act, but the catalogue of tics he brings to this character borders on caricature.

"I think saying, 'I like it,' isn't as useful as saying things I saw in it. Lots of things I 'like' other people can't stand. But I do like a lot of what this play says."