What would you do if Joseph Stalin asked you to come up with a way to preserve Vladimir Lenin’s corpse for all time? Success would change your life forever; failure would end your life abruptly. This is the high-pressure scenario two Jewish scientists found themselves facing in 1920s Russia, and the stage play of this true story is being brought to life at The Canadian College of Performing Arts (CCPA) with Lenin’s Embalmers.
Elijah Bell, who plays one of the two scientists, Vladimir Vorobiov, is excited to share the play’s quick wit with audiences.
“What really interested me was the pace of it all,” says Bell. “Because it’s so quick, and it’s so snapping. There can be two scenes happening at the same time, but the writing is constructed in a way that it all just kind of makes sense.”
Despite the high stakes, the story cuts its teeth by using pervasive and morbid comedy.
“During the Soviet Union, there was this special type of joke that kind of helps people cope, that points out the difference in how things should be and how they are,” says Bell. “It takes place… under the kind of totalitarianism of Joseph Stalin and it highlights the hypocrisy and the the kind of imbalance of power… This idea of a communist joke is very present throughout, so it was definitely very mocking and poking fun at the structural integrity of these ideas.”
While the jokes are based on a format which is 100 years old, Bell feels that the comedy may be familiar to today’s audiences given our current social climate.
“The gallows humour is actually fairly similar to a lot of the very modern doom humour in terms of, like, it’s a way of coping and laughing when everything sucks,” says Bell.
The ideas explored in Lenin’s Embalmers are primed for this type of humour.
“One of the biggest themes of the play is definitely power, and this idea of how power changes hands, as well as this idea of legacy, and what you are leaving behind, what you will be remembered for.”
Written by one of Canada’s most produced playwrights, Vern Thiessen, Lenin’s Embalmers debuted in 2010, with the ending taking place in modern day. Thirteen years later, Thiessen is aware that the world has changed a lot since he wrote it. Because of this, he’s given CCPA the chance to create something entirely unique.
“It’s very contemporary, it’s very new,” says Bell. “But along with our licence for this production, Vern has said, ‘Hey, if you guys want to change the ending, feel free.’”
The cast and director worked together with Thiessen to present something more fitting to today’s world. But one thing remains the same: no matter what, the world needs art. Not just art that deals with the abstract, but art that’s self-aware about the time and space it’s existing in, art that takes responsibility for what it’s saying and what it implies. Bell, for one, takes that responsibility head on.
“Something that we have talked quite a lot about is, no matter what you do, as an artist, you’re always making a statement. With a play with the subject matter of Russian leaders—and corrupt Russian leaders on top of that—there’s definitely a statement we’re making, for sure.”
Lenin’s Embalmers
Various times, Thursday, November 30 until Sunday, December 3
Various prices, Canadian College of Performing Arts
ccpacanada.com