A debut thriller from 17-year-old Iowa Playwriting alumnus Lev Steinberg, 44 Minutes heads to Edinburgh Fringe this year. He is currently adapting his second play, Lockdown, into a film. He is also the recipient of the May Sarton Writing Award for his short story writing. He recently wrote and directed three short narrative films and just completed a documentary.
“Part Sartre, part Hitchcock, 44 Minutes is an existential thriller about the value of human life, the cost of vengeance, and what it is to be a man at a time when that has never been more in question.”
Where: Front Room at Assembly Rooms
When: 6-30 Aug
Ticket link: https://www.edfringe.com/tickets/whats-on/44-minutes
What can you tell us about your show? What is it about and where did the idea come from?
44 Minutes is a psychological thriller written by me and directed by Michael DeFilippis. Featuring an all-star cast with John Billingsley (True Blood, Star Trek), Dorian Missick (Better Call Saul, Luke Cage), Christopher Ryan (American Horror Story), and Matthew Petrick (The Florida Project), the play follows four men who wake up trapped in a cage, with seemingly no way of escape.
They don’t know why they are there, who has taken them, or what their captors want. As they desperately try to piece together the truth, they discover that they are part of a perverse psychological experiment: one of them must be chosen to die in order for the other to live.
But why these four men? What makes them so special? What connects them? And what makes one life more worth saving than another? The play wrestles with questions of memory, guilt, justice, and whether a person’s past actions should define who they are forever. It asks whether pain can ever become a form of justice, and how far people are willing to go when they convince themselves that cruelty is necessary.
The idea stems from my interest in moral judgment and the philosophical debate about whose life may be more valuable and what happens when people are forced to make impossible choices under pressure. This idea puts into question what actually defines a person. Are we born who we are, or are we built by our memories and experiences? If someone loses their memory, are they still the same person? Are there parts that exist beneath memory, traits we are born with that cannot be erased?
The play is extremely timely yet has a timeless quality nonetheless. It is tragic, tense, and, in a strange way, perversely beautiful.
How would you sell it to audiences in one paragraph?
If you are drawn to intense theatre that grapples with deep questions of morality and is impossible to look away from, then 44 Minutes is for you. It is a psychological thriller told in real time, built around a ticking clock, where audience members will unravel the mystery alongside the characters: who trapped these men, why are they chosen, and what truth is hiding inside the cage? As the timer counts down, every second pushes the audience closer to an impossible moral judgement and calls into question what we think people deserve.Â
44 Minutes is tense, tragic, and unsettling, but also strangely beautiful. It is a play that pulls audiences into the mystery and traps them in its moral questions. Audience members will leave the theatre questioning their own judgement and turning over the truth of the events in that cage and what they reveal about justice, punishment, and themselves.Â
Do you enjoy participating in the Fringe? And do you have any moments you particularly remember?
This will actually be my first time participating in the Fringe, and I could not be more excited. I am incredibly grateful to Assembly for giving 44 Minutes a home at the festival. I visited the Fringe last year, and I was completely struck by the energy of it: the whole city was alive with performances. I really fell in love with Edinburgh, and with the Fringe, so it feels very special to now be returning as part of the festival with my own play.
What are you looking forward to the most in Edinburgh?
I’m most looking forward to seeing this story come alive on stage at the biggest arts festival in the world. I’m thrilled to be able to show this piece to audience members from all over the world.
I’m also really looking forward to experiencing as much of the festival as I can. One of the most exciting things about Edinburgh is being surrounded by so many different artists and shows at once. I can’t wait to see other Fringe performances and be part of that creative community.
What’s next for the show?
At some point in the future, I would love 44 Minutes to be mounted in other theaters around the world. I would especially love to bring it back home to New York and see it performed in an Off-Broadway space. More than anything, I want the story and its questions about justice, memory, punishment, and human nature to reach as many people as possible.