Between truth and fiction: 'SPAIN' looks at a group of artists lured into the Spanish Civil War

Sangria, bulls and naps are part of a series of clues leading to “SPAIN” by Jen Silverman.

Fusion is presenting the play as a staged reading on Saturday, Feb. 17, and Sunday, Feb. 18.

Silverman’s work has made regular appearances at Fusion.

“Fusion has been a great fan of Jen’s for many years,” said director Laurie Thomas. “She goes all the way back to one of our short play festivals.”

“SPAIN” is a clever look at a discreet group of artists who get lured into the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s, Thomas explained.

Two of them have landed their next big project: a sweeping Spanish Civil War film with the potential to change American hearts and minds.

It’s bankrolled by the KGB.

It’s a sophisticated, slippery world where the line between truth and fiction lies all in the packaging ... not unlike our own.

One character, Ivens, is based on the director of the 1937 anti-fascist film “The Spanish Earth.”

“He got Ernest Hemingway to co-write the screenplay with the writer John Dos Passos,” Thomas said. “There is some evidence the Russians were involved in that war.

“It really parallels a lot of our contemporary experience; the Russian hacking in our last (presidential) election,” she added.

“We all assume we’re being fed things by politicians,” Thomas continued. “She’s asking how much culture and art provokes false perceptions of what’s going on in the world. At one point, are artists puppets to dark influences?”

Today, we look to the internet to direct our cultural experiences.

“It’s possibly manipulating to get us to think certain things,” Thomas said.

Silverman is also exploring ways the left-leaning are as susceptible to lies as anyone else.

The fictional director Helen continually takes a back seat to the men.

“Are we any different?” Thomas asked. “Why didn’t (‘Barbie’ director) Greta Gerwig get nominated” for the Oscar?

“Do they really have the validation their counterparts have?”

Fusion also produced Silverman’s play “The Moors,” as well as her original book for the company’s children’s theater tour of “Princess Marisol and the Moon Thieves.”

“We probably have an eye toward a full production (of ‘SPAIN’),” Thomas said, “but the staged reading is a nice way to introduce it to our audience.”

Silverman’s plays have been produced off-Broadway and across the U.S. at Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theatre and the Goodman Theatre, the Williamstown Theatre Festival and internationally in Australia, the United Kingdom, the Czech Republic, Switzerland, Brazil, Spain and more.