The setting is a weathered house hidden in Jericho. Inside, the floor is littered with upturned furniture, scripts, costumes (including a giant cat jumpsuit made out of velveteen). The lampshades are cockeyed to shed light on a makeshift stage and the strumming of an acoustic guitar floats down the stairs. I am in the creative lair of the cast and crew of the new OUDS Fringe production of The Master and Margarita. In the final days of rehearsal, I had the opportunity to sit down with the creative minds behind this latest stage adaptation of Bulgakov´s classic novel, co-adapters, co-direcotrs and actors, Raymond Blackenhorn and Max Hoehn.
What inspired you to choose this novel to adapt into a play?
Max: I’ve always wanted to do something Russian and I thought the book’s playfulness, its exuberance and humour were perfect for a Fringe show specifically. So many people love this book for its rich narrative that combines hilarious satire, a stark retelling of the Passion and a really touching love story at its core. It’s got something for everyone.
Raymond: We both had read the book years ago and loved it and wanted to do a show for Fringe. I thought the sort of anarchic character of the book was good for a Fringe show, it is good for late slot, Edinburgh atmosphere. I think it was a marriage of those two concepts….to choose a show that was suited for an immersive performance and also just the ambition of it.
How did the adaptation process work and what was the most challenging part?
Max: In a way the trickiest bits to adapt practically, such as Margarita’s flight over Moscow, have been the most fun because they really let your imagination run wild in thinking up how to communicate a particularly magical or complex part of the book on stage. What we have now, we had to redraft several times.
Raymond: We would just try playing it off of each other. We’d write something, do the scene, go back and change it. It was a great process. One person could think about just trying to write. And the other person could say, that’s not dialogue or that’s not playable.
What are the main themes of the story for you and for this production?
Raymond: Whenever you do a production you have to feel that you are making some contribution, that you are not just repeating someone else’s thing. In this sense our production is quite different from the existing ones of Bulgakov. More people should know about Bulgakov, more people should read it—it is about what it was like to be an artist at that period. Every moment every scene you are handing the audience something. I think it is very moving that this novel is so full of imagination and fun but then it is also so angry and bitter and it was difficult to write—what would it have been were it not for the society he was in?
Max: The key themes in the piece are the inner struggle within the principal characters to maintain faith in what they believe. We have a universal story of cowardice and truth in the retelling of the Christ story. This is mirrored in the Master’s artistic commitment to truth. For me there’s another motif in the meeting between Master and Margarita, which again is about belief in each others’ love and preservation of hope in spite of all obstacles.
In putting on a play where Jesus, Satan and Pilate are some of the main characters, how you feel that the play is addressing religion, spirituality and faith?
Max: The novel is about faith, but not specifically religious faith. Christ’s struggle is made all the more powerful because he’s presented as a normal, non-iconic figure who’s fighting for what he believes. Pilate’s inner struggle remains the focal point of the Jerusalem narrative, which runs against the Gospels, introducing more subtlety and helping us understand his position more. The attack on one objective truth that everyone has to abide by could be seen as an attack on both Communism and the Church (as an institution). But Bulgakov’s ideas are neither pro-Christian or anti-religious I’d say. Both evangelical Christians and Satanists have vandalised Bulgakov’s Moscow apartment in Sadovaya!
Raymond: I think it is very spiritual, but spiritual rather than theological. I don’t think it’s a philosophical meditation on religion as such, Bulgakov uses these characters because they are the best way to tell the story. Everyone relates to Christ at some point. People see themselves in Christ at different points, that is very important for the characters, for the cast, for Bulgakov. We are using Christ’s story as a metaphor for everyone’s own struggles. I hope that will be invoked in the audience as well.
What aspects of the show are you most excited about?
Raymond: There’s a lot of music, a lot of dance, a lot of comedy in our production. A lot of Russian tango, the ballet Russe, Diaghilev. We have a Billie Holiday song Gloomy Sunday and we’ve got the original Hungarian version. Jonnie [McAloon] plays Tchaikovsky on the violin, there is Shostakovich, there is Prokofiev. It is very eclectic. All the kind of little details of the novel, we found our own way to have leitmotifs.
Max: Bulgakov’s brand of comedy benefits from a more pantomimic, brash approach to the acting. Getting the cast to embrace this non-naturalistic, confrontational approach and ensuring that the design is as bold as possible has been a major part of the process. Part of the set (designed by Jess Edwards) is a constructivist structure that will stand like a monument to revolutionary communism on the side of the stage. The presence of the structure represents that revolutionary ideal of bringing art down to one objective truth of straight lines and strong material. The production is a lively fusion of music, dance, comedy and debate. The subject matter is punchy, diverse and magical. It’s one of the great classics of modern literature translated into an imaginative stage production where you’ll confront the themes and style of the original right before your eyes. The show draws on Russian street theatre spectacles and tableaux, interpreting the work as one that resonates today for its fantastical story-telling and its commentary on a society that, like ours today, is in danger of losing faith in itself and others.
The Master and the Margarita will be playing in Oxford, July 31 and August 2nd before going on to London and Edinburgh. Visit the website for tickets and information: www.oudsdobulgakov.com
