Review: ‘Describe the Night’ at Steppenwolf Theatre is a long night exploring the origins of Putin’s Russia

Steppenwolf Theatre’s production of Rajiv Joseph’s “Describe the Night” is one weird cat of a show. I can’t recall ever seeing a piece that was so beautifully composed and acted in its individual scenes — and yet so failed to put them together in such a way as to allow tension and cohesion to build and make sense for an audience. A long evening, too, at close to three hours.

One of the drawbacks of a theater in the round, such as the new Ensemble auditorium built during the pandemic, is that when people are looking at the time or falling asleep at a show, they form the visual backdrop for everyone on the other side. So it went Tuesday night. The theater was sparsely attended in the first place, maybe half a house, and the number decreased during Act 2. The show is billed as a thriller. Only in the marketing language.

Joseph’s piece, previously seen in Houston (in the middle of the catastrophic 2017 Hurricane Harvey) and at the Atlantic Theater Company in New York, owes something to Franz Kafka in its depiction of the malevolence of Soviet bureaucracy, and to Martin McDonagh in its exploration of the intersection of truth, lies, and alternate personal narratives. Joseph, of course, is a serious and brilliantly smart writer whose previous work at Steppenwolf has often enthralled. And the themes of the show, which one might reasonably deem an exploration of the origin story of Vladimir Putin’s Russia, certainly offers plenty of brain fodder. But this one needed, at a minimum, to proceed at least 50% faster in its trajectory.

Frankly, the experience is a lot like watching 50 separate plays and then trying to put them in the right order in your head, but to do so without any clearly empathetic characters or emotional through-line. Some were engrossed in what Joseph was trying to do and there are some superb performances here from a cast that includes such formidable ensemble actors as Glenn Davis, Yasen Peyankov (who is especially odious as Nikolai Yezhov, a real-life figure who was the head of Stalin’s secret police), Sally Murphy and James Vincent Meredith, who plays the real-life Jewish writer Isaac Babel.

So we’re in a Tony Kushner-esque blend of fact and fiction. That’s interesting, especially since Davis plays a KGB agent with the first name Vladimir, or Vova. So there’s that. Chronology-wise, we sweep but we’re rooted in 1920, when Babel really did ride along with Russian troops as they fought the Polish-Soviet War, and in 2010, when a suspicious plane crash (96 dead) over Smolensk, Russia took out much of the Polish government including Lech Kaczyński. The play connects the two through a modern-day reporter, played by Neff, and you get the sense that Joseph really wants to probe the uber-narrative of that 90 years — especially the kind of Soviet dirty tricks that apparently remain extant, given all the people we hear to be dying by suicide in Russia. In Joseph’s world here, Glasnost mostly was branding.

The work is ambitious, massively so, and Steppenwolf certainly should be supporting such intellectually rich shows. But the work is just too hard for most people to follow, a bizarre state of affairs given all the previous productions. And although director Austin Pendleton has forged some rich scenes, filled with interplay, creativity and a deliciously quixotic and yet malevolent sense of the absurd (you’ll hear about some distinctive soup), it’s as if you start over with every new setting.

All shows need drive, but that’s especially true with this kind of complex epic. People these days are used to streaming shows like “The Last of Us” that never stop rushing and building to the next place and thing. That’s the competition for the theater these days. Time to face reality.

Chris Jones is a Tribune critic.

cjones5@chicagotribune.com

Review: “Describe the Night” (2.5 stars)

When: Through April 9

Where: Steppenwolf’s Ensemble Theater, 1646 N. Halsted St.

Running time: 2 hours, 50 minutes

Tickets: $20-$86 at 312-335-1650 and steppenwolf.org