Keeping a Journalist’s Murder Alive

She was threatened repeatedly. Poisoned, twice. Detained by Russian security forces, tortured and told she would be executed.

None of this was enough to stop Anna Politkovskaya from reporting on the second Chechen War.

In books and articles for the newspaper Novaya Gazeta, she described, with ruthless objectivity and an acute sense of moral complexity, the clash between the Russian government and the Chechen rebels that opposed it.

She investigated allegations of abuse on all sides, pursuing the truth relentlessly, often on behalf of the Chechen civilians most victimized by the war, until she was shot and killed in Moscow in October 2006 at the age of 48. Five men were convicted of her murder in 2014, but critics say the case remains unsolved until whoever ordered the assassination is held accountable.

The journalist’s life and work is the subject of Stefano Massini’s play “Intractable Woman: A Theatrical Memo on Anna Politkovskaya,” which opens Sept. 23 in a Play Company production directed by Lee Sunday Evans.

A director turned playwright based in Tuscany, Massini, 43, is known for finding tragic grandeur in an eclectic array of real-life subjects.

“Intractable Woman,” which is now in previews, will be the first of his works to be produced in the United States, followed by another Massini play with resonance even closer to home. “The Lehman Trilogy,” a London hit about the rise and fall of the Lehman Bros. financial firm, comes to the Park Avenue Armory in March. (Two other plays about journalism are landing on Broadway, too: an adaptation of the film “Network” and “Ink,” about the early career of Rupert Murdoch.)

In an email correspondence, Massini talked about his artistic interest in historical figures and why he hopes to visit New York. Edited excerpts follow.

A: I remember very well: I began writing immediately. And do you know why? Because I was struck by the fact that by killing Anna, someone thought they were solving a big problem. It was simple: Is there a journalist who tells uncomfortable truths? Good: We kill her. So who will ever realize it? Who will ever remember her, once she is buried? She will end up forgotten. This is why I decided to write.

A: I have always written in this form. My plays are strange, I recognize it. Something halfway between the epic, the screenplay, the ancient tragedy. Do you remember the anatomical table? Here it is: the theater is the biopsy of reality. At least it is for me.

A: Warning: this is not so. It is much more complicated. Both plays are not written for three actors, but can be recited by one, two, 20 actors. I do not specify it. “The Lehman Trilogy” has been staged in Italy by Luca Ronconi with 11 actors. Sam Mendes made it in London with three actors; it’s his choice. Same for this play: I saw a version in France with 23 actors! I leave the directors total freedom.

A: I rely on truth, on facts. But I rewrote it completely. Is it true that Anna found herself in Grozny on the site of an explosion? Of course, it’s true. But I invented the way she tells it, her images, her sensations. My task is this: to recreate the real.

A: Every day I read the newspapers. I read them deeply. Because that’s where my works are born. The theater has always been born there. I wrote theatrical pieces on the economy, on wars, on precariousness in the world of jobs. One of my monologues tells the true story of an old immigrant who walked 5,000 kilometers from the Iraqi desert to the ice of Sweden.

A: The distortion of truth is continuous, gigantic. We are not given the facts. We are all maneuvered. Anna was the opposite of this; she was a witness, she saw, she lived something, and she told us about it.

A: The themes of our time must land on the stage. You love this contemporary theater, and I am with you. For example, I can give you a great preview: Another play of mine, the title is “State Versus Nolan,” will become a Hollywood movie. But it was born as a theatrical text which tells a whole trial. Witnesses, accusation, defense. Popular jurors. And the cause has to do with the media, and their arousing fears in readers.

I think it’s the opposite of the play about Anna. Here I describe the excesses of freedom of the press. Freedom of the press does not mean being allowed to use newspapers to terrorize people.

A: I hope. I would like to go back to that little hotel among the Korean florists. The smell was strong: headache! But it seemed to be in earthly paradise: flowers everywhere.