Seven Days: Vermont's Independent Voice

Liar, Liar

Desert island adventures with giant octopi, sea turtles and aboriginal natives are generally the stuff of fiction. But one man claimed to have experienced it all, and the Vermont Stage Company tells his story in a production of Donald Margulies’ Shipwrecked! Louis de Rougemont’s sensational tales charmed Victorian-era London, but he was later denounced as the “greatest liar on Earth.” With just three actors and an onstage sound-effects man, the VSC’s production is really “a valentine to the art of imagination,” offers director Mark Nash. Using bare-bones props — flowing fabric symbolizes octopus tentacles, for example — the play poses a question, says Nash: “If a story is really good ... does it matter if it’s true or not?” You decide.