When Soso is left for dead on the Eastern Front, he’s taken in by the Kremlin due to his shocking resemblance to a certain someone. Koba is tasked with training him to perform the role of a lifetime: Stalin’s body double. While Soso is a performer—trained to dance, juggle, and tour the countryside entertaining peasants—Koba is an actor’s actor, a student of Stanislavski himself (maybe you’ve heard of his System?), committed to the pursuit of perezhivanie, or experiencing a character’s reality. Together, the doubles prepare for the Conference at Tehran, when three so-called Great Men (or were they merely players?) decided the fate of the 20th century.