Review – Master and Margarita – Complicite at the Barbican

How do you adapt a novel with no less than four different story lines going simultaneously? Worse, how do you do this when you’re dealing with a novel that commonly is chosen as one of the top one hundred novels of the twentieth century? That’s the challenge I knew Complicite was facing with Master and Margarita. I’d seen it performed before in Seattle, in an enjoyable production by Theater Simple. However, I didn’t know the work at all at the time (mutterings of “cult like following” and “classic” were heard), so I was mystified by what Jesus had to do with a giant black cat.

Over time as I started choosing non-science fiction books to read, Master and Margarita made its way into my stack. I found it really impressive – a story of a poet being beaten down by the bureaucratic realities of writing in the Soviet era, narrative breaks about Pontius Pilate’s struggles during the trial and crucifixion of Jesus, a meta-narrative about the author of the story of Pilate (and told by him to the poet while they are both in an insane asylum), and another quite fantastic tale of Margarita, a woman who sells her soul to the devil to be reunited with her lover, whom is only ever called “The Master.” How do you make sense of this? I figured it would be necessary to cut, cut, cut (and was correct – I mean, after all, this was not Harry Potter fandom we were dealing with), but that still we would be left with several real challenges. After all, there are TWO decapitations in this play, and in both, the head talks afterward! And then there is the talking giant cat (still!), the devil’s ball, and the question of how you can handle having a witch fly.

But then there is the group doing the performance: Complicite, who knocked my socks off with their near “Empty Stage” approach to Shun-kin a year ago. I felt very positive going in. First, I felt they would make the right choices about what to cut. Second, because of their tendency to approach theater from a stripped-down perspective, I felt they would tell the tale in a way that engaged my imagination rather than feeding it to me with a spoon. Really, the story could easily be over-produced. But, in general, the company used minimal props (a bed, chairs, a rug) and substituted minimalist lighting effects for sets, defining rooms with delicately drawn outlines on the floor and mostly letting us add the walls in our minds’ eyes.

I have a real dislike for projections being used to crush imagination instead of setting it free, so I’d like to talk a bit about how they were used for this show, as it was quite intrinsic to the stagecraft. At some points, they were quite heavy-handed: providing a sea of bodies for a scene in a theater (with actual actors planted on stage in chairs in gaps in the pictures); showing a huge pan as if we were shooting up above the streets of Moscow (this done with a satellite photo – while overwhelming especially from own seat in the gods, I found it appropriate for a story so entwined with the actual geography of an actual city); the transformation of the floor of the stage into a sky and clouds upon which Margarita (paddling on her stomach on the stage) could fly. Despite their usefulness, I couldn’t help but feel these full-stage moving images were dictating our visual experience in a way I think belittled our abilities as an audience to take small cues and run with them.

My biggest problem with the projections was when they were used in a Katie Mitchell-esque way (i.e. Attempts on Her Life), to show people’s faces in closeups on the back of the theater as they talked in front. This to me was too much like watching TV and I seriously disliked it. That said, the projections deftly handled the issue of the decapitated heads, with (in one case) a projection of only the face an actor (who was sitting on the side of the stage with a bright light on his face) being shone onto a clay model of a head, thus letting it “talk” (via the projection) and then be smashed – not really possible with a real actor. So score one for stagecraft.

Amidst all of this, how was the story? Well, I think it was a bit difficult to get too emotionally involved in it; like the book itself, there is a lot going on and a lot to think about, but not too much to tug the heartstrings. And there is a great element of comedy and absurdity in the goings on, but also a kind of distant observation of the struggles of humankind. Pilate’s self-questioning as he deals with Yeshua seem typical of how every person deals with hard decisions, and in a way a bit of a foreshadowing of what was going to happen in Germany … and of the humanity of Yeshua’s response, that underneath it all, even when forced to do evil deeds, people are still essentially good.

Watching all of the flappings of the still-new Soviet state as it attempted to bed in Communism and figure out its relationship to the arts, though, I felt a profound sadness about the world this play depicted. Yes, people struggled to get treats like cigarettes and nice clothes, yes, people ratted on their neighbors in order to get better apartments, yes, dissidents were starting to disappear, but I could see a civil society struggling to take place, I could see people undertaking deep intellectual pursuits in a society that had time for serious literature: and all of it was on the verge of being entirely blown away, both by World War II and the Stalinist purges. I was watching a society attempt to flower just before a boot heel ground it out – and it was heartbreaking to see this work as a memory of a time that had been so thoroughly erased by history. It all could have gone so very differently.

Despite this feeling, despite what happened later, Master and Margarita is profoundly compelling both as a message in a bottle and as a beacon of the amazing powers of the human imagination. You can feel all of that spirit swelling up through Complicite’s production, even way up in the corner of the second balcony where I was perched on the edge, enjoying it all. Overall, I think this was an excellent production of a timeless work of fiction addressing universal concerns, and well worth its investment in time (195 minutes, the first act an intense 1:45 so don’t have a drink beforehand) and money (I only spent £14 but I’d rate it as worth £30 or £40). Sadly, it’s sold out for the run … but if you keep hitting F5 you may be able to get a ticket, so don’t give up.

(This review is for a performance that took place on Friday, March 16th, 2012. It continues through April 7th. Contains both male and female nudity done in the best possible way to move the script forward.)

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Mini-review – Collaborators – National Theatre

As ever, I’m a big fan of new plays, so when the National announced a new play about Mikhail Bulgakov was going to be in their fall/winter season, I was all over it. I mean, hell, a play about the author of The Master and Margarita (which I’d just read the previous year)? Yes please! I was slightly put off by it being more about the suffering of creative types during the Stalinist purges – I had some fears it would become miserabilist but decided I’d be hopeful and bought tickets anyway, for very early in the run.

Then something unforeseen happened: a one night only event came up that was so exciting I decided to postpone seeing the play. And somehow, it had become very popular, very fast, and the next time I could get two tickets for a show I had been planning to see in November … was January! Ah well. So this is my review, rather late, of a show that nobody is bothering to look for reviews of anymore.

To my surprise – it was great, a perfect marriage of a fine script and excellent acting, with the National for once restraining itself and not putting in an overdesigned set that stifled the imagination. Instead, Bob Crowley created a simple-seeming zig zag through the center of the Cottlesloe, with a little walkway around the near end of it and little Constructivist extrusions that hinted at walls and windows, and small changes of decor to indicate the center table was now a dining room/ a doctor’s office/ a desk in a writer’s workshop.

The play started off with an absurdist note, as Bulgakov (Alex Jennings) is having a dream in which a Elmer Fudd-like Stalin (Simon Russell Beale) is chasing him around his apartment with a typewriter. Real life, however, is just as ridiculous, as the Bulgakovs wake up to discover a new tenant is now living in their wardrobe (he falls out of it). They are dealing with the privations of daily life by living a little bit of a fantasy world, pretending to pour coffee for breakfast and then bragging about the wonderful hot baths they have taken.

With this warping of reality, the conceit of the play – that Bulgakov is “asked” to write a play about Stalin, then meets with Stalin regularly in a secret bunker where Joe types it up while Bulgakov takes care of business of being a dictator – just plain works. Beale keeps the big man wavering on either side of sanity, while Jennings manages to make Bulgakov’s evolution from underdog to willing servant of an ugly machine seem completely logical. But the genius of the play is that this interaction takes on the hyperreality of a fairy tale in which a deal is struck with the devil (or with fairies), and every wish you make is warped in front of you – handfuls of gold coins turn into rotting leaves, the gift of eternal life is twinned with eternal aging, a beautiful house is revealed to be roofless and full of cobwebs. Every step Bulgakov makes, whether it’s to work with or undermine Stalin, is twisted around so that he becomes an object of hatred to all of his friends, a person who actively undermines other artists, and, finally, a writer who is so compromised he has completely lost sight of his own authorial integrity.

From reading the program notes, it’s clear that none of this ever happened, and that the play is a fantasia on the real life of Bulgakov. But its grounding in reality means hits deeper truths that a more factual play would have been less universal (while I was given enough of a teaser to become interested in reading what really happened at the time). Overall, this was a brilliant work, wonderfully presented, and while I’m glad to hear it’s transferring to the Olivier, I think there will be something lost in taking away the intimacy (and the additional strangeness caused by the audience being dropped in lumps around the corners of the set) of the Cottlesloe. See it there if you can, but do see it even if you have to wait; a new work this good is truly a reason to celebrate.

(This review is for a performance that took place on Tuesday, January 17th, 2012. It is booking through Sunday, May 13th, 2012.)

Review – White Guard – National Theater

Oh lord. Must I write up a review for this? White Guard was perfectly acted (mostly) and had impeccable set dressings. But it was just all SO BORING. Okay, well, it wasn’t that boring to most of the people there – somehow in a play mostly about civil war (and how damned uncivil it was) there was plenty of room for laughs – the butler helping dress a man escaping from a palace, a young man falling impossibly in love, a room full of people getting drunk and throwing up – yes, there were lots of comedic moments.

And, well, the setting, the bombs exploding were very realistic, and the bunker in which Petlyura’s forces hide is very realistic. But all of this dinner conversation about who is going to rule the country – I didn’t care for it or for the singing! (Actually the singing was very good. But it didn’t make me like the play.) The one woman in the play – Elena Vasilievna Turbin (Justine Mitchell) – is dressed beautifully. But … every time I see a Russian play, I feel like they spend all of their time arguing and none of their time doing anything. Alexei Vasilievich Turbin (Daniel Flynn) almost turned that upside down by DOING something, but everyone else managed to gang up and screw up his big moment.

I can blame some of this on the script, but somehow I feel like this problem of perfect, dry shows is more of a problem of the National. Really, if they’re going to stick to this perfectly realistic style, so perfect for sixth formers trying to get a little bit of culture in, can they please choose scripts like The Voysey Inheritance or Major Barbara, where there is at least some real moral quandaries being discussed on stage? I should have gone to see 4.48 Psychosis at the Barbican instead. I have no idea what the West End Whingers really saw in this show, but, for God’s sake, if you’re not a fan of Russian drama or a National Theater completist, please just go next door and watch London Assurance, which is so much better I can hardly believe I saw them both in the same building. Well, okay, it’s not that much better, but it’s excellent and this play is just flat. I presume the critics are in general going to cream themselves because White Guard is so very much in that realistic English style they seem to eat up, but as for me, I’d have rather spent the evening re-reading Master and Margarita.

(This review is for the performance that took place on Tuesday, March 23rd, 2010. White Guard continues at the National Theater through June 15th, 2010. Seriously, these were the people in the pretty house that An Inspector Calls was taking to task,and I just felt no sympathy for them as they sat there drinking and singing while people were fighting in the streets. I can’t believe they weren’t all shot at the end of the play. Actually, after reading John Morrison’s review, I’m convinced that it’s the so-called translator who needs to be shot.)