The Master & Margarita (Belvoir) ★★★★★

Devised by the cast and creative team. Based on the novel by Mikhail Bulgakov. Belvoir St Theatre. 11 Nov – 10 Dec, 2023.

There are words and phrases which, when I see them in a show description, give me pause. “Immersive”, “interactive” and “devised by the company” all equal one thing in my mind – “mind-dumbing self-indulgence”, or at the very least the potential to be. So when I read that Belvoir’s The Master & Margarita was “devised by the cast”, in addition to “duration: 3hrs” and adapted from a Russian novel… well my brain was prepared for a whole evening of pain.

I should have known better. 

The Master & Margarita is one of the most vibrant things I’ve seen all year, and it’s been a very good year for Sydney theatre. 

Mikhail Bulgakov’s novel tells the story of The Master (Mark Leonard Winter), a writer whose work has been deemed subversive and banned. His latest work, a retelling of the story of Jesus and Pontius Pilate, stays hidden in journals. When the Master is thrown in gaol, his lover Margarita (Anna Samson) goes to supernatural lengths to get his release. Meanwhile, in 1930s Moscow, the Devil (Paula Arundell) is having fun with Stalinist atheists…

Director Eamon Flack and the company of actors have taken to the text with a simple mantra, “Don’t be boring” and bring a substantial cache of showmanship to this decidedly meta adaptation. Every trick in the book, and I often mean a literal book, is used to keep you entertained and the story moving along at a brisk clip. There is a lavish amount of nudity, which never feels unwarranted in context.

The Master & Margarita is often more circus, magic show and cabaret than traditional theatre, but then there is little ‘traditional’ about this play. There is no fourth wall. As the room laughed at a line about “the housing situation” the cast are quick to point out it’s not a modern addition, but part of the original text. When the characters launch into a not-so-subtle critique of wealth they take full aim at the audience before them. I spent a good part of the running time slack jawed, in awe of what this cast was doing and the audacity and irreverence they displayed.

The company introduces a third narrative, that of writer Bulgakov’s own life, to the stage making the novel’s subtext of repression shockingly overt. This is where the play really sunk its teeth into me. For all the entertaining mania on stage, the production never loses sight of its story, of the reality and the impact it has.

After three hours, the play does slightly suffer from Return-of-the-King-itis – an ending that you see coming but seems to take far too long – but it never burns through the good will the show had stockpiled all the way through.

As we left, my English friend turned to me and said “That’s the kind of thing you’d see at the Royal Court or the Donmar. It should tour” and I couldn’t agree more. Send this over to London and New York… it’ll blow their minds!