Louder than bombs

The saying goes that truth is stranger than fiction, and two new documentary plays in Boston would argue that truth is also more compelling.

The American premiere of Robin Soans’s ‘‘Talking to Terrorists,’’ presented by Súgán Theatre, and the world premiere of Marc Wolf’s one-man show, ‘‘The Road Home: Re-Membering America’’ at the Huntington, offer theatergoers a look at the roots and effects of terrorism at home and abroad. In contrast to the nightly news, the plays — both of which are based on real-life interviews with a wide range of people affected by terrorism — try to address the issue on a deeply personal level, attempting to humanize one of the most vexing and tragic aspects of our new global political reality.

Wolf was in Los Angeles when terrorists attacked his hometown of New York City on Sept. 11, 2001. Instead of rushing back, however, he took the long way home, embarking on the road trip that provides the structure of ‘‘The Road Home.’’ Starting in Seattle, Wolf drove down to California’s famed redwood forests, across Nevada to Arizona’s Grand Canyon, and through Tennessee, Kentucky, and West Virginia on his way back to New York. During the two-month trip, he talked with a vast cross-section of people, including a Malaysian immigrant, a pair of Mexican women studying in Texas, coal miners in West Virginia, and an architecture critic in New York City.

‘‘There’s an Emily Dickinson poem called ‘This is My Letter to the World,’ and that’s what I was looking to capture ..... each person’s letter to the world,’’ says Wolf.

His unstructured interviews became an open-ended conversation with his fellow citizens about how we define ourselves as Americans. Onstage, Wolf relies on subtle shifts in voice and manner to portray the people he spoke to and to convey their rage, sadness, confusion, vulnerability, and hope.

‘‘The play is a collage I created from my journey,’’ Wolf says. ‘‘It was a window of opportunity when we were asking questions that we usually don’t allow ourselves to ask, and I wanted to capture that.’’

While Wolf takes a snapshot of the moment when America felt victimized, Soans, a London playwright, trains his eye on terrorists themselves.

‘‘I wanted to give voice to people who are usually excluded,’’ says Soans. ‘‘Experts have an angle [when discussing terrorism], but real people don’t have an agenda. They talk about their experience.’’

From April 2004 until January of last year, Soans and his company, Out of Joint Theatre Company, interviewed 80 people involved with terror movements around the world — former terrorists, their victims, and the psychologists, diplomats, and journalists who attempt to make sense of the violence.

The resulting play, which premiered in England last year, uses the actual words of Soans’ interviewees, most vividly those of the Kurds, Palestinians, Irish, and Ugandans who, mired in an assortment of political struggles, felt they had no choice but to resort to terror. Child soldiers and hardened militia members confide their terrible actions and personal motivations.

‘‘I wanted to expose terrorism, not condone it,’’ Soans says. ‘‘When you hear their stories, and understand better why they did it, you’ll wonder if ‘terrorist’ is the right word to describe them, or if there were extenuating circumstances. You won’t use the word ‘terrorist’ again without thinking twice.’’

In the Súgán production, eight actors portray the play’s 25 characters.

With spare sets and minimal costumes, both plays allow the voices of interviewees to fill the stage. Both playwrights have employed the interview technique before to create theater and are believers in its power to convey truth and move audiences.

‘‘People have a different way of listening to plays [based on interviews],’’ says Wolf. ‘‘People respond to the authentic voices.’’

‘‘[The interview technique] removes a layer of skepticism, the feeling that ‘no one would ever say that,’.’’ says Soans. ‘‘[You’re] talking directly to the audience, which feels personally involved. You might think a play called ‘Talking to Terrorists’ would be unrelentingly grim and savage, but the characters are often trying to intrigue and fascinate, not horrify. It’s more entertaining than that.’’