How to Explain the History of Communism to Mental Patients

Wing & Groove Theatre Company presents the United States Midwest premiere of Matei Visniec’s How to Explain the History of Communism to Mental Patients, as part of Playing French, Chicago’s First Festival of Contemporary Plays From France, running October 1-November 28, 2004, on stages throughout Chicagoland.

In this darkly funny and theatrical collage of love and propaganda, roulette and totalitarianism in a Moscow asylum during the final days of Stalin’s reign in 1953, writer Yuri Petrovski is sent to teach the history of Communism to edify and hopefully cure the hospitals inmates. Director Bryan White and Wing & Groove Theatre Company’s ensemble production of Visniec’s absurd satire will be influenced by the provocative physical style of avant-garde Russian theatre director (and eventual victim of Stalin’s regime) Vsevolod Meyerhold.

Additional Sunday performances, October 10 and 17, at 3pm.