Some good actors attempt to breathe life into writer-director Murray Mednick’s talky, tedious Mayakovsky And Stalin, the longest two-and-a-half hours I’ve spent in a theater in years.

 Not that there couldn’t be an interesting play about Mednick’s titular protagonists: Joseph Stalin (a particularly strong Maury Sterling), the Soviet dictator responsible for anywhere from three to thirty million deaths during his years in power; his wife Nadya (Casey McKinnon), who shot herself and died following a public quarrel with her husband; poet Vladimir Mayakovsky (Daniel Dorr), whose own gunshot suicide preceded Nadya’s by two years; and Lilya Brik (Laura Liguori), Mayakovsky’s actress muse and the only one of the four to make it to old age.

 What Mednick gives us instead is a university-style history lecture delivered by the sort of bookish, long-winded professor who could put a class to sleep in mere minutes (Max Faugno as “Chorus”) between pauses during which cast members engage in endless conversations about big ideas (or nothing at all) while facing the audience rather than each other, a technique that sucks whatever energy might otherwise be present in face-to-face encounters.

 Meanwhile the rest of the cast (Rhonda Aldrich as Yelena, Andy Hirsch as Lilya’s husband Osip, Alexis Sterling as Lilya’s sister Elsa, and Ann Colby Stocking as servant Masha) observe from a row of upstage chairs when not participating in the dialog. (Aldrich lucks out by getting to spend Act Two backstage, though unfortunately she has to stick around for curtain calls.)

Sound designer John Zalewski underscores the “action” so soothingly, if Mednick’s play doesn’t lull you to sleep, its original score will.

 Matt Richter’s lighting is appropriately moody, but dimly lit scenes don’t make it any easier to remain alert regardless of how wide awake you may have entered the theater. Stalin’s distinctive uniform the most striking of Shon LeBlanc’s multi-period costumes.

Only scenic designer Nick Santiago’s projection design perks things up with historical images and footage reminding us of the far more engaging bio-drama Mednick’s play might have been.

 Mayakovsky And Stalin is produced by Racquel Lehrman, Theatre Planners. Misha Riley, Theatre Planners, is assistant producer. Casting is by Raul Clayton Staggs. Danny Crisp is production stage manager.

Poet-playwright Mednick’s fans may get it, but this is one evening of theater I’d gladly have skipped out of at intermission had the reviewer’s code of ethics not prevailed.

Lounge Theatre, 6201 Santa Monica Boulevard. Hollywood. Through August 19. Fridays and Saturdays at 8:00. Sundays at 3:00. Reservations: 323 960-4443
www.plays411.com/stalin

–Steven Stanley
July 21, 2018
Photos: Ed Krieger

Tags: Joseph Stalin, Los Angeles Theater Review, Lounge Theatre, Murray Mednick, Padua Playwrights, Vladimir Mayakovsky