Lenin's Embalmers

Science might be a high stakes game, but a project's success or failure rarely determines whether the researchers undertaking it will live or die. There are, of course, some exceptions to this; say, for example, your work is funded by Joseph Stalin, and your task is to devise a way to preserve for eternity the body of Stalin's predecessor and the father of Soviet communism, Vladimir Lenin.

Boris Zbarsky examines Lenin's
embalmed body, while Vladimir Vorobiev
and his assistant, Nadia, watch
Photo: Gerry Goodstein

Lenin's Embalmers, a new play that opened this week at Manhattan's linkurl:Ensemble Studio Theatre,;https://www.ensemblestudiotheatre.org/ portrays Boris Zbarsky and Vladimir Vorobiev, the two biochemists whom Stalin recruited to fulfill precisely this duty shortly after Lenin's death in January, 1924. The two scientists understand the rewards that await them should they succeed, but they also know the price of failure. They tousle over whether or not to team up and take the gig, tossing the two possibilities back and forth in imagined newspaper headlines. "'Two Jews embalm Lenin!'" dreams Boris; ambitious and politically astute, he sees the proposition as a path to fame and fortune. "'Two Jews die in the salt mines!'" counters Vlad, who wants only to be left to his research at his university in the provinces. Vlad realizes with horror that true success is impossible -- no matter how good a job they do, the body will still have to be re-embalmed every 6 months or so. Boris, however, sees the upside. "A job for life!" he proclaims, and one which, if they guard their secret, secures their posts much better than academic tenure ever could. Lenin's Embalmers isn't the first time that Canadian playwright linkurl:Vern Thiessen;https://www.vernthiessen.com/ has brought science to the stage. His play Einstein's Gift, which debuted in 2003, told the story of two scientists whose work was co-opted for martial ends. Lenin's Embalmers was commissioned two and a half years ago by the Ensemble Studio Theatre and the Alfred P . Sloan Foundation, a joint project that funds art offering compelling explorations of science and scientists. To portray the science in the play, Thiessen turned to outside help, consulting with Dorothy E. Hutchins of the linkurl:American Academy McAllister Institute of Funeral Service,;https://www.funeraleducation.org/ which happens to be located right around the corner from the theater, on 52nd street in NYC. Hutchins helped Thiessen gain an understanding of "the chemistry of death," the playwright says, "how different bodies take different chemicals, and the fact that whether a person died of cancer or a gunshot wound, whether it was a child or an elderly person, really influences" the process. She also helped him appreciate the human element of funeral science. "You're not dealing with test tubes and regular kind of scientific things," says Thiessen. "You're dealing with a human body." Thiessen explores this interplay between science and humanity in two key scenes. Having committed to the job, Boris and Vlad get together to devise the embalming protocol they'll use. Lenin's body has already begun to decompose, the leader having died more than a month ago. What if it doesn't absorb the embalming solution? An intellectual sparring session ensues, with the two men throwing out chemical possibilities at a fast clip, culminating in Vlad's stroke of genius: potassium acetate, he says, will make the formalin penetrate. "I'd say 99% of the audience has no clue what they are talking about" in the scene, says Thiessen.

Boris and Vlad at work
Photo: Gerry Goodstein

When it's finally time to turn to the body, though, Vlad yields to the artistry of embalming. "The body will tell us what to do," he assures Boris. What follows is a wordless, beautifully choreographed sequence -- in some sense the heart of the play. Compressed into 10 dreamlike minutes is the four months that the two scientists spent mixing solutions, laying compresses and submerging Lenin's body in baths to create the best-preserved corpse in history. There is even a faintly sweet smell emanating from the stage, though I may have imagined that. We watch the men's movements behind a panel of windows -- first smooth and purposeful, then tense as they check the corpse's progress. Finally, we watch them gingerly lift the wraps from Lenin's face, and then reach out to grasp each other's faces in jubilation. The embalming is a success, Lenin's mausoleum is built, and the scientists are awarded national medals. Soon enough, though, Stalin starts with his Soviet shenanigans, and the two scientists turn out to be very replaceable after all. Ultimately, the play is not so much about Boris and Vlad; they are simply two people who were caught, like many others, in the Soviet machine. Instead, says Thiessen, it's about "hanging on" -- trying to preserve things that would be best let go. Lenin's mausoleum still stands in Moscow, and visitors still trickle in to see his body on display. In Thiessen's play, however, Lenin would prefer it weren't so. As superhuman efforts are being made on behalf of his body, his portly ghost wanders on and off the stage, telling classic Soviet jokes and wishing for nothing more than to be left to rot. Lenin's Embalmers runs through March 28 at the Ensemble Studio Theatre in Manhattan.
**__Related stories:__***linkurl:Death, delimited;https://www.the-scientist.com/article/display/55845/
[August 2009]*linkurl:The Rehabilitation of N.I. Bukharin;https://www.the-scientist.com/article/display/8389/
[2 May 1998]