14 LITTLE RED HUTS Premiers at the Medicine Show Theatre

14 Little Red Huts, a dramatic look at Soviet policy in the early 20th century that led to the deaths of nearly 15 million people, will be performed by the Medicine Show Theatre from October 18 through November 18. Ioan Ardelean, a Romanian actor and professor who grew up under the old regime, directs.

The story examines the human toll of Stalin's treatment of the peasantry after the Bolshevik Revolution. The misguided policy of "collectivization" forced individual peasant households into communal farms called "kolkhozes" during the late 1920s and early 1930s. By the 1930s it was clear the government's attempt to feed a growing industrial-worker class was failing. The policies set farming quotas far too high, did not account for poor or average crop yields, and prohibited peasants from saving some of their crops for their own use. Relatively wealthy peasants who owned livestock or smaller plots of land were declared enemies of the state and killed or exiled to Siberia. The result was famine.

"This play is less concerned with the details of bureaucratic snafu than with what happens to people when bureaucracy promulgates ridiculous laws and you have to obey them," said Medicine Show actor-manager Chris Brandt. He noted a particularly cruel irony in the fact many peasants had been enthusiastic revolutionaries. "The play is not a political analysis of the mistakes of Stalinism. Rather, it's about what happens to the people given those mistakes."

The folly seems obvious to us today, but this production raises the question: how much has changed? As any sales team working in corporate America today can attest, shortfalls occur when quotas become unmoored from reality. In the case of a growing Russia, those food shortfalls led to humanitarian crises and a death toll equivalent to the current populations of New York City, Los Angeles and Chicago combined.

Noted Russian novelist Andrei Platonov wrote this play in horror after being dispatched by Moscow to the collectives to write propaganda pieces extolling the success of the happy farmers. Boris Pasternak (Doctor Zhivago) was another such writer and was so appalled by what he saw that he couldn't write for a decade after.

Submitting the play to the Soviet censor's office, however, would have meant death or exile for its author. Consequently the piece was not seen for decades, until the fall of communism. It took almost another 30 years, until now, to make it to the United States.

On this 100th anniversary of the Bolshevik revolution, be among the first in this country to see this important work. Decide for yourself if we have learned at least some lessons from one of history's most tragic chapters.

Medicine Show Theatre Ensemble is one of the oldest experimental theatre companies in New York City. The troupe offers alternatives to conventional theatre by playing with language, music, movement, form and ideas.

For more information and reservations, call 212 262-4216. To purchase tickets on line, go to www.brownpapertickets.com. TDF accepted.