The Conceit

One night during the time of the late 1930s Soviety purges, five friends rehearse an operetta based upon the comic adventures of a character invented by Isaac Babel: the Jewish “Gangster King” Benya Krik, who had become something of a folk-hero in Soviet Russia. Their aim is to perform their musicale later that evening at a drinks gathering for members of Stalin’s inner circle. Their hope is to entertain and also to ingratiate themselves with the Soviet bigwigs, and so forestall any punitive measures – against Babel in particular – who is in some disfavor with the mandarins in the Kremlin. There will be plenty to drink, and what better way to tickle the humor of a gang of vodka-soaked/ stoked Commissars than to offer them comic musical skits chronicling the misadventures of Benya and his Jewish hoodlums. But there are noises off. During the run-thru, they learn that there has been a shake-up among Stalin’s intimates, which bodes no good for any of the five friends. Not only that, but as the rehearsal proceeds it begins to dawn on them that maybe these humorous tales are not so funny after all, and that perhaps it is not such a good idea to enact the story of a “Gangster King” for this particular mob of officials. What is a “gangster” after all? But they are committed, and the Comrades will be arriving at any moment. “Fiddler On the Roof” meets “The Godfather,” in the operetta within a play that is “Isaac Babel And The Gangster King.”