Truth is lie; lie is truth. Russia, 1920: Jewish writer Isaac Babel begins a journal while serving in war. Ninety years later, this same journal is found in the wreckage of a suspicious plane crash. What did Babel write, and why does it matter? Ensemble member Rajiv Joseph’s sweeping and arresting epic follows the unlikely lives of seven Russians—soldiers and poets, KGB agents and babushkas—as they unearth mysteries buried by decades of history, fiction and blood.