I went recently at the National Theatre to see Collaborators, a new play by John Hodge. Starting from the famous incident of the phone-call Bulgakov received from Stalin, Hodge has imagined a what-if story that brings together the author and Joseph Stalin himself in a collaborative effort to come up with a play celebrating the big man's 60th anniversary.
The production was excellent from all points of view (I am talking as a theatre lover, but not a connoisseur), with a straight, uncomplicated yet strong scenography reminscent of the great Russian avant-garde stage designs.
Snapshots of the stage-setting (with apologies to the National Theatre)
The play opened with a cartoonish dream sequence in which Bulgakov was chased by Stalin around the house. The music and acting was suitably vaudevillian until Joseph Vissarionovich lifted a typewriter and was ready to crash it down on Bulgakov's head... moment when Mikhail Afanasyevich woke up. "Did he catch you this time?" was the leitmotif as the wife and the flatsharers entered the stage, setting the action firmly in a cramped Moscow apartment.
Alex Jennings and Simon Russell-Beale were amazing as Bulgakov and Stalin, with Russell-Beale creating an irresistible mixture of black humour and evilness. All in all, I think the play captured well the madness reigning supreme in 1930s Soviet Union, and also the spirit of Bulgakov's writings from the Diaboliad, Heart of a Dog, A Dead Man's Memoir (aka Black Snow), and The Master and Margarita.
Bulgakov was a gifted playwright, and Stalin was apparently a big fan, going to see The White Guard (or The Days of the Turbins) some fifteen times - although it was about a bourgeois, Czarist family that sided with the Bolsheviks during the civil war only to escape death.
I saw the version by Michael Upton staged by the National Theatre in 2010, and I enjoyed it as well. It was very well acted, and the scenography was again very good, going towards the spectacular as the action progressed to scenes of street fighting involving pyrotechnics. The strongest point of the show was the script, adapted skilfully from Bulgakov's play (which, in its turn, was adapted by Bulgakov himself from the banned novel of the same name). A very good text about the play and its author was written by Will Self for The Guardian.
For a wonderfully dark and satiric view of the world of theatre in 1930s Soviet Union, A Dead Man's Memoir is an absolute must. Among other luminaries of the Soviet literary scene, it features, albeit in a disguised manner, Stanislavski, father of the Method, and Alexei Tolstoy, the Red Count.
The (in)famous phone-call from Stalin had more than one effect on Bulgakov's life and career. He was banned for taking a too critical view of the system, but survived the purges and disappearances. To what extent this was due to Stalin being, as the character declared in Hodge's play, his "number 1 fan", will probably be never known.
Snapshots of the stage-setting (with apologies to the National Theatre)
The play opened with a cartoonish dream sequence in which Bulgakov was chased by Stalin around the house. The music and acting was suitably vaudevillian until Joseph Vissarionovich lifted a typewriter and was ready to crash it down on Bulgakov's head... moment when Mikhail Afanasyevich woke up. "Did he catch you this time?" was the leitmotif as the wife and the flatsharers entered the stage, setting the action firmly in a cramped Moscow apartment.
Alex Jennings and Simon Russell-Beale were amazing as Bulgakov and Stalin, with Russell-Beale creating an irresistible mixture of black humour and evilness. All in all, I think the play captured well the madness reigning supreme in 1930s Soviet Union, and also the spirit of Bulgakov's writings from the Diaboliad, Heart of a Dog, A Dead Man's Memoir (aka Black Snow), and The Master and Margarita.
Bulgakov was a gifted playwright, and Stalin was apparently a big fan, going to see The White Guard (or The Days of the Turbins) some fifteen times - although it was about a bourgeois, Czarist family that sided with the Bolsheviks during the civil war only to escape death.
I saw the version by Michael Upton staged by the National Theatre in 2010, and I enjoyed it as well. It was very well acted, and the scenography was again very good, going towards the spectacular as the action progressed to scenes of street fighting involving pyrotechnics. The strongest point of the show was the script, adapted skilfully from Bulgakov's play (which, in its turn, was adapted by Bulgakov himself from the banned novel of the same name). A very good text about the play and its author was written by Will Self for The Guardian.
For a wonderfully dark and satiric view of the world of theatre in 1930s Soviet Union, A Dead Man's Memoir is an absolute must. Among other luminaries of the Soviet literary scene, it features, albeit in a disguised manner, Stanislavski, father of the Method, and Alexei Tolstoy, the Red Count.
The (in)famous phone-call from Stalin had more than one effect on Bulgakov's life and career. He was banned for taking a too critical view of the system, but survived the purges and disappearances. To what extent this was due to Stalin being, as the character declared in Hodge's play, his "number 1 fan", will probably be never known.
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