The Passion of Josef D is a play by Paddy Chayefsky based on the life of Josef Stalin. It only had a short run on Broadway in 1964 despite being directed by Chayefsky himself and featuring a cast including Luther Adler and Peter Falk.The Passion of Josef D at Playbill This experience deterred Chayefsky from having his plays produced on Broadway for the rest of his career. David Amram composed acappella vocal music for the play and hired two perfect pitch singers to get the ensemble started on key. Tyrone Guthrie was scheduled to direct but when he became unavailable Chayefsky decided he would direct it himself, his first and last time directing. Many years later, when asked by original cast member Robert Aberdeen if he had any unproduced plays that he would consider having produced, Chayefsky replied, "Bob, I'm not interested in theater. There's no money in Theater." Jerome Robbins came in as a "show doctor" try to help to no avail. David Amram said of the play, "If Guthrie and not Chayefsky had directed it, we'd still be running." Paddy Chayefsky obituary New York Times accessed 29 Oct 2013
Original cast Luther Adler as Lenin Peter Falk as Stalin Alvin Epstein as Constable Kentinov/ Alexander Lomov/ Trotsky Elizabeth Hubbard as Nadezhda Milt Kamen (making his Broadway debut) as Kamenev /Grigori Nikitin Betty Walker as Olga Evgeyevna/ Krupskaya Sean Allen as Ensemble Robert Berdeen (aka Robert Aberdeen) as Ensemble Ramon Bieri as Alliluyev Frank Bouley as Second Sailor/Ensemble John Carver as First Sailor/Ensemble John A. Coe as Rykov/Ensemble Carole Crook as Ensemble Michael Enserro as Zinoviev/Ensemble Janet Frank as Ensemble Richard Frisch as Ensemble Rico Froehlich as Brustein /Cheidze Gene Gross as Muranov/Sverdlov Bruce Kimes as Bronsky/Ensemble Simm Landres as Molotov/Ensemble Penelope Laughton as Ensemble Royce Lenelle as Ensemble Michael McGuire as Kapinsky/Ensemble Sylvia O'Brien as Ensemble Anthony Palmer as Mirsky/Ensemble Gedda Petry as Ensemble Richard Robbins as Ensemble Nicholas Saunders as Sukhanov/Orjonikidze/Ensemble Jon Silo Klurman as General Kornilov Peggy Steffans as Ensemble Elaine Sulka as Ensemble Don Wesley as Chugurin Carol Wilder as Soloist/Ensemble Mervyn Williams as Rusikov/Skobelov/Ensemble Stafford Wing as Ensemble
Reception The Passion of Josef D. was not well-received upon its initial release. Howard Taubman wrote, "Since he can write with tension and power, Mr. Chayefsky has developed some scenes that have dramatic intensity. But his intoxication with the thunder of the English language also has betrayed him into bursts of rhetoric. His careful researching of his subject has led him into long discourses that are not dramatic at all, but oratorical flourishes in hindsight."
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