![]() The Master and Margarita, as adapted and directed by Eamon Flack, in a production “devised by the cast and creative team,” is that, as a play, it explodes off the stage in a rollicking, kaleidoscopic spectacle of joy and mayhem for just under three hours – including interval. However, the dictator adored Bulgakov’s play The Day of the Turbins, and dramaturg Tom Wright wryly notes in the Belvoir program, “Stalin was a passionate theatre enthusiast and a mass murderer.” For Bulgakov, one trait canceled out the other. ![]() In truth, it was as good as banned because, in the last decade of his life, Bulgakov’s work was suppressed as he lived under the terror of Stalin’s reign. Unlike his earlier work, it was not banned, probably because it remained unpublished until decades after his death – and that of the Soviet dictator. Then there’s Mikhail Bulgakov’s celebrated 396 pages of The Master and Margarita. Among those who’ve been banned from time to time in Australia are the comical ( Jackie Collins), the obvious ( Marquis de Sade), and the obscure but, on investigation, the bleeding obvious: Desert and Eliezer Flores’s How to Make Disposable Silencers. Toni Morrison is the most banned author in the USA. The most banned book globally is George Orwell’s 1984. You can do a lot of damage with a book – ask any dictator. Photography by Brett Boardman: above - the company below - Tom Conroy, Matilda Ridgway, and Josh Price below again - Anna Samson and Paula Arundell ![]() THE MASTER AND MARGARITA, Upstairs Belvoir at Belvoir St Theatre, 15 November-10 December 2023.
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