War of the Worlds

Directed with Wellesian flair by avant-garde doyenne Anne Bogart and written by PEN-winning playwright Naomi Iizuka, War of the Worlds takes an unsparing look at the relativity of truth. Intriguing parallels are drawn between the life of the master manipulator who set America on its collective ear with his ingenious, panic-inducing 1938 radio adaptation of H.G. Wells’ War of the Worlds (Invasion from Mars) ? a little stunt that revealed our shocking vulnerability to misinformation, our willingness to be duped ? and that of Citizen Kane’s Charles Foster Kane, Welles’ most famous protagonist. Bogart’s deftly realized theatrical conceit is to cast the two in the same probing light. The equally potent realities of Welles and his cinematic doppelgänger are juxtaposed with artfully conceived flashbacks that mirror and play off the film’s unforgettable images, conjuring a world true to the one inhabited by the tragically embattled artist. This production is part of BAM’s Next Wave Festival.