19:45, Tue 1st – Sat 5th February 2005 at ADC Theatre
Lent Week 2

In the amateur premiere of this new adaptation of Bulgakov’s magic realist novel, we are transported to 1930s Moscow. The Master, a playwright the authorities consider subversive, is locked away. His sole ally is his mistress, Margarita: until the Devil arrives in Moscow. ‘Woland’ wreaks merry havoc, making people disappear, chopping off heads and staging a spectacular black magic show. The Muscovites’ socialist rationalism shatters at the sight of Satan himself and his deranged troupe of assistants: bare-breasted Hella, fanged Azazello and a giant black cat. The Devil befriends the hapless Master, on one condition: that Margarita hosts his Satanic ball where history’s most infamous murderers carouse. The Master strikes a Faustian bargain with Woland: but at what price? Bulgakov’s modern masterpiece throws together epic romance, political satire and comic absurdism in a story which throbs with the variety of life. An aesthetic extravaganza which celebrates the best and worst of existence: people die horribly, love madly, and nothing happens in moderation.