Chayefsky’s least successful play on Broadway and you can see why audiences mightn’t go for it – all those Russian names and long history, it goes on for a long time, isn’t exactly feel good entertainment, and Chayekfsy is a bit too much in love with his research.
But it’s marvellous – rich, bold, moving. There are funny moments and moving moments, too – a mixture of theatrical styles (Brecht, music hall, naturalism). Characters say asides to the audience at the end of scene, or break into song. There's violence and sex, lots of political talk and some symbolism.
The plot starts at the beginning of the 1917 Russian Revolution and goes up until Lenin’s stroke in 1924. We hear a lot (perhaps too much) about Stalin’s upbringing and character – the devoted, ruthless revolutionary, who finds God in the form of Lenin – a brilliant, tormented genius. The schisms of the party, Stalin’s romance with his revolutionary second wife, the struggles of the time – it’s all brilliantly, vividly conveyed.
Some superb moments, like the opening scene where we meet Stalin, who chats amiably to his prison guard who’s just let him out because of the revolution – then kills him. Or Lenin’s monologue five years after the revolution (any of his monologues, really), Stalin’s wife’s declaration of love for her husband, the two businessmen who symbolically kill themselves, the cameo of Trotsky. It’s wonderful and you really wish someone would revive it (a natural for a drama school looking for pieces with a big cast).
(Reading this made me check Shaun Considine’s excellent biography of Chayefsky. Apparently Charles Bronson almost played the lead role – it was even announced – before it went to Peter Falk. And Elia Kazan wanted to direct it for the Lincoln Centre but Chayefsky was impatient and ended up directing it himself on Broadway.)
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