5 days ago
- Entertainment
- Chicago Tribune
Review: ‘Six Men Dressed Like Joseph Stalin' at A Red Orchid Theatre is based on an intriguing true story
One Joseph Stalin was one too many. The new play now at A Red Orchid Theatre is about the existential angst that flows from an acting role only a Soviet apparatchik could truly love: standing in for a murderous dictator with myriad enemies.
Apparently, there were at least four Stalin doubles in reality, all employed to throw off those who might do harm to the main man. Much work went into their preparation (hair, weight, mannerisms, gait and so on), to ensure the physical likeness was as deceptive as possible. The gig was hazardous and the run could be brief: At least one of the fake Stalins was killed by a roadside bomb as his cortege was passing Red Square.
In 'Six Men Dressed Like Joseph Stalin,' playwright Dianne Nora imagines a training session for one of those doubles, with characters based on the real-life figures of Aleksei Dikiy (a Stanislavski-trained actor who played Stalin in propaganda films) and Dikiy's trainee Felix Dadaev, a former dancer and juggler who was chosen in part for the job because he'd been left for dead on a battlefield and thus had little personal identity to be in potential conflict with Stalin. Dikiy kept silent for years about his Stalin act but eventually fessed up in a 2008 autobiography, presumably feeling enough time had passed that no one would be coming to take him out.
Dado's production at A Red Orchid Theatre went through some major problems (differences of process, I was told) that culminated in one actor leaving the production late into rehearsals, necessitating the cancellation of opening night, given that this is a two-person show. John Judd became the pinch hitter as Dikiy, working opposite Esteban Andres Cruz.
I suspect that if these two experienced actors had worked together from the beginning, the two would have gelled more than was the case when I saw the show last weekend, when the show's energy seemed to operate only in fits and starts and the stakes never rose to the ideal level. I also was confused as to why the director dado had not worried a little more about actual physical resemblance to Stalin, given that this is a play about that very thing. Cruz has some lovely long hair but I'm not sure that would aid in fooling a potential assassin.
Perhaps I'm being too literal there and the play absolutely explores some interesting broader issues, especially for people who work in the arts. Most interesting to me, at least, are the scenes that deal with the idea of maintaining professional and educational integrity in the face of both coercion (Dikiy had already been to Siberia) and moral bankruptcy. I saw glimmers of that conflict, which is hardly limited to playing Stalin, flash across Judd's face at times as he found his way into this role.
Cruz, meanwhile, puts his heart into this struggling but still youthful character, but I think the piece really needs to reveal more of his difficult transformation. Achieving that in this kind of play, though, requires more of a surrogate parental relationship between these two characters and that needs two actors who more clearly occupy the same world and find a mutual way to drive on through its thickets.
Review: 'Six Men Dressed Like Joseph Stalin' (2.5 stars)
When: Through June 22
Where: A Red Orchid, 1531 N. Wells St.
Running time: 1 hour, 35 minutes
Tickets: $35-$50 at 312-943-8722 and
