The Asian Fantastic |

Collaborators concerns the relationship between Iosef Stalin and writer Mikhail Bulgakov in 1938. True to historical fact, in that year Bulgakov wrote a play celebrating Stalin’s early years, a move that has puzzle historians of the Stalin’s years to no endless amount. Many historians believe it was merely a ruse by Bulgakov to curry favour with the regime in order to get anything he had written finally on stage after years of his work’s censorship. In Collaborators, John Hodges gets inside the mind of the writer as he works on his play and battle the kidney disease that was soon to kill him.

The play presents a powerful image of an artist torn with guilt over his collaboration with a regime that he knows full well to be evil. The fantasy and hectic surrealism of the play and the production seem heavily influenced by Bulgakov’s last wonderful novel The Master and Margarita. In this play, the devil himself comes to Moscow. If Littlewoods discount codes could get me a cheap ticket I would certainly go along!