Fear not a homework assignment: The tweedily professorial Lukesh (Firdous Bamji) will abandon his usual lesson plan, and quickly, as he’s reeling from a domestic development it wouldn’t be sporting to spoil. (I will say his initial topic of mobile communications at awkward moments is entirely fitting.) In short order, “This Much I Know” expands its scope from Lukesh’s classroom to include an author’s transatlantic investigation of a murky family tragedy, a bright young student with a headline-worthy secret and the motivations, marital and otherwise, of Joseph Stalin’s daughter.
Yes, the actual Stalin’s actual daughter, who defected to the United States in the midst of the Cold War and talked about why in a sensational news conference. As if its structural and philosophical ambitions weren’t enough, Spector’s masterfully built puzzle-drama assembles its pieces from not one but three real-world stories, not to mention the meditations of Nobel-winning behavioral economist Daniel Kahneman. As staged with brisk authority by Theater J artistic chief Hayley Finn, who’s making her directorial debut a year into her stewardship of the house, “This Much” pursues an entertaining, emotional and surprisingly energizing inquiry into how and how well we can ever know anything — even about ourselves.
Misha Kachman’s set, at first a simple grid of chalkboard green and warm-glowing oak, suggests both lecture hall and academic retreat, then unfolds as intricately as the play does to contain scenes in trains and on planes, in settings variously public, private or deep-Soviet archival. Sound and lighting, by Sarah O’Halloran and Colin K. Bills, respectively, remain subtle until a moment calls for them to snag the audience’s attention. Apt projections by Mona Kasra supply moody atmosphere and considerable whimsy — Is that portrait of Stalin talking? — by turns.
Bamji provides the evening’s warm and winning anchor not just as Lukesh but as a love interest who helps catalyze Svetlana Stalina’s moral awakening. As the dictator’s daughter and as Lukesh’s novelist wife, Natalya, among others, Dani Stoller turns in an eloquently physical performance: angular and antsy here, big-eyed and immobilized by horror there. Ethan J. Miller makes convincing work of that scandal-haunted student’s intellectual and emotional journey, inhabiting a small republic’s worth of other characters besides.
Among its considerable accomplishments, “This Much I Know” is a budget-conscious producer’s dream, a three-hander with the oomph of an “Oppenheimer.” And for true drama-club nerds, Spector has scattered meta-theatrical Easter eggs hither and yon: The text waltzes briefly with the actorly truism that no villain believes themself to be one, and a brisk bit with babies and vodka bottles demonstrates that a stellar coup de theatre doesn’t have to involve actual spectacle.
All that, and “This Much” feels acutely timely, too: Spector’s concerns include how blinkered views become widespread social currency, why facts so often fail to dent false narratives and how life-altering events get remastered in memory until we lose track of their lessons. “We make sense of things, even things there’s no sense to be made of,” says Lukesh in the play’s early moments. It’s a weary, wary summation in context, but after the fact, it seems a fine tagline for a superb example of wordy, wonky, exuberantly intellectual theater — the kind of theater D.C. does so well.
This Much I Know, by Jonathan Spector. Directed by Hayley Finn. Set, Misha Kachman; costumes, Danielle Preston; lighting, Colin K. Bills; sound, Sarah O’Halloran; projections, Mona Kasra; props, Pamela Weiner. About 2 hours and 30 minutes with intermission. Through Feb. 25 at Theater J, 1529 16th St. NW, Washington. theaterj.org.