Experiment: How The Master and Margarita was first staged in Moscow

A play based on the eponymous novel by Mikhail Bulgakov, the Master and Margarita, was first staged at the Taganka Theatre. The book, in which biblical features are intertwined with satire on Soviet reality, was banned in the USSR up until the year 1967. The audience, heading to the theatre that April evening in 1977, could not believe that they would at last see a play based on the novel that they had all already read for the first time in the form of  copies that were passed from hand to hand. Yury Lyubimov himself could not believe it: the director had had to wait for many years to get permission to stage The Master and Margarita.

What Woland did in Moscow

The devil himself, Woland, comes to Soviet Moscow. He is accompanied by his retinue – demons, a witch and a huge werewolf cat named Behemoth. Here the fun really begins: the whole company settles in the "bad flat" of chairman of the MASSOLIT board Mikhail Berlioz, who left this world under the wheels of a tram, holds a black magic séance in a theatre, causing horror and the audience to panic, teleports a respected person to Yalta and drives poet Ivan Bezdomny absolutely crazy.

In parallel with these events, another story develops. Being in love with a misunderstood writer, young married lady Margarita is ready to give up everything she has for her lover. But she is not aware of anything to do with his current fate: after he burned the manuscript of his novel about philosopher Yeshua Ha-Nozri and procurator of Judea Pontius Pilate, which was banned from publication, he ended up in the house of sorrow, a mental institution.

Margarita prays to all the forces that might possibly listen to her, she is ready to give her soul even to Satan, if she is allowed to see her beloved Master at least once. And then Woland turns his gaze on the beauty and sets a condition: she must play the role of queen at his ball. The devil fulfills the contract, and what’s  more, even returns to the Master his novel, which died in the fire. “Manuscripts don't burn,” he tells the dumbfounded writer.

10 year-long wait

The novel the Master and Margarita always caused heated debates. It was called too bold, satirical and at the same time attractively mystical, almost dangerous and definitely the most mysterious among Mikhail Bulgakov’s works. The fact that the book was never finished also heightened public interest.

The writer’s widow, Yelena Bulgakova, brought together the drafts and edited them, due to the fact that the author passed away in 1940. Interestingly, it is she who is considered the prototype of Margarita, like the heroine of Bulgakov’s novel, she completely believed in the talent of her husband and helped him in every possible way she could. It was Yelena who saved Bulgakov’s book, as Margarita saved the Master’s book.

The novel was banned for a long time, as the censorship authorities considered it immoral, and the book appeared on sale only in 1967. In the same year, Yury Lyubimov applied for the inclusion of The Master and Margarita in the plans of the Taganka Theatre. But the director had to wait almost 10 years for permission to stage the play...

Lyubimov asked a friend of his eldest son, young writer Vladimir Dyachin, who was just defending his diploma on Bulgakov’s work, to stage the novel, that is, to write a play based on it. The play, written by Dyachin, immediately, as if by magic, received the approval of the censorship committee the very next day. Although it was expected that permission would probably take months to receive.

Finally, in 1976, permission was granted. But with a caveat – "as an experiment." This meant that Lyubimov could not count on financial support. “No problem,” the director thought, rolled up his sleeves and prepared to stage the play, completely relying on his own efforts.

Creating the sets

Since the authorities did not allocate any funds, the sets were made from what the theatre had at hand. Lyubimov proposed that artist David Borovsky recycle  the props from the Taganka Theatre’s best plays: the curtain from Hamlet, the tribune from Alive, the golden frame, in which Pontius Pilate sat during the play, from Tartuffe, and so on. The costumes also had to be recycled using those from the old productions.

In addition to this, Lyubimov came up with something very interesting: in the scene where Woland showered the visitors of the variety show with chervonets, the audience was handed Tanganka Theatre complimentary tickets. One can only imagine the emotional intensity in the auditorium at that very moment.

The music for the play was written by composer Edison Denisov. He also used excerpts from music by Sergei Prokofiev, Dmitry Shostakovich and Alfred Schnittke in the musical setting. Woland's phrase "Manuscripts do not burn" in the finale could be heard accompanied by the gloomy "Dance of the Knights" from "Romeo and Juliet" by Sergei Prokofiev. Neither Lyubimov nor Denisov wanted any other music to be used in the scene.

Naked Margarita and the role of discord

Lyubimov offered the role of Woland to Veniamin Smekhov (he starred as Athos in the film "D'Artanyan and the Three Musketeers" in a year, in 1978). The director really liked the appearance of this actor, he called it imposing, thoroughbred. That is how he saw the devil. Smekhov destroyed the fourth wall, peering into the faces of the audience so that they had goosebumps, made ironic remarks (according to the text and improvisations), and in general, according to Lyubimov, he was as good as a miracle. Vladimir Vysotsky also dreamed of this role, but the director invited him to play poet Ivan Bezdomny. The actor ultimately refused to participate in the play at all.

“Then I found out, I somehow didn't understand that Vladimir really wanted to play Woland. But I didn’t know, I gave him the role of Bezdomny, because it seemed to me that he was simply born for this role and could perfectly perform all the humor and irony for this character. Perhaps, out of delicacy, he didn't tell me that he wanted to play Woland,” Lyubimov later recalled in his book ‘Tales of an Old Bouncer.’

Dalvin Shcherbakov starred as The Master. Lyubimov generally liked his acting, but he believed that the actor missed something in this role – some kind of inner breakdown. So, after a while, he was replaced by Leonid Filatov.

Woland's retinue was played by Ivan Dykhovichny, Yury Smirnov, Tatyana Sidorenko, and Zinaida Slavina – she played Azazello the demon. The role of Yeshua went to Alexander Trofimov, Matthew Levi to Konstantin Zheldin, and Pontius Pilate to Vitaly Shapovalov.

Lyubimov searched a long time to find the main actress. The chief difficulty was the following: according to the plot, she needed to appear naked at some point. It was only a rare actress that would have agreed to play such a role in the 1970s, she needed remarkable courage, because this role could end her career. The director managed to find such a risky actress, beautiful Nina Shatskaya, familiar to the audience from the films Sasha-Sashenka, White Piano and Premature Man.

At some point, naked Margarita received guests, sitting on a block at the edge of the stage, with her back to the audience. Such an idea was simultaneously shocking and bewitching; people said that she looked like a sculpture of Venus in a museum, that there was not an ounce of vulgarity in this nudity. During the acceptance of the play by representatives of the USSR Ministry of Culture, there were some curious. Lyubimov recalled: "...Many officials, when accepting it, asked: “Is she naked in front too?” And I invited them to look from the front side."

Fantastically short time

No one in the theatre believed that The Master and Margarita would ever be staged. And at first, some of the actors and actresses worked half-heartedly, believing that the play might be closed down at any given moment. They seemed to be waiting and watching what would happen next. Lyubimov was not amused. He envisioned the beginning of this work in a completely different way.

It was assumed that for the first time, the whole company would read the play through in a festive atmosphere. Lyubimov bought wine and fruit and wanted it to be a special evening, after so many years of waiting. In response, he received not a discussion of the play but   stupid questions and squabbles that are present in one way or another in every theatre. Someone spoke about their roles, someone said they wanted to play a different role. The festive mood was ruined.

Over time, the situation improved, with all the actors and actresses fully involved in the process. The rehearsals went briskly and cheerfully, there were 45 of them in total. “A fantastically short time,” the director emphasised. True to his manner, he did not calm down until he achieved what he wanted, forcing the performers to go over the same scene again and again. A good result did not suit him. He needed perfection.

In his plays, Yury Lyubimov liked to speak directly with the audience, and The Master and Margarita was no exception. Some heroes, for example Woland, asked the audience questions and made such remarks that doubts arose: maybe we are talking about the 1970s not the 1920s? However, Bulgakov's novel is relevant at all times.

The performance lasted a little over three hours. Time passed mystically quickly, the audience said. It’s still part of the repertoire. Having changed many cast members, Lyubimov's The Master and Margarita remains one of the main hits of the theatre to this very day.