Satirical, Satanic ‘Master And Margarita’ At Yale

Mikhail Bulgakov was a playwright himself, but theater types often bypass his plays and prefer to adapt his novels and short stories for the stage instead. An adaptation of Bulgakov’s story “The Fatal Eggs,” for instance, premiered at the Yale Cabaret last year and had a New York run in September.

Bulgakov’s masterpiece is the novel “The Master and Margarita,” which was written in 1928 but not published until 1966, over a quarter-century after the writer died. It’s a thought-provoking and layered, yet consistently hilarious, satire of religion, academics, government and love relationships. The book’s dozens of characters include a death-predicting prophet, a disgruntled Christian novelist, an ill-fated poet and Satan himself.

The Yale School of Drama has done “The Master and Margarita” once before, in 2001. That time, it was directed by Will Frears using an adaptation by the acclaimed Russian theatermaker Yuri Lyubimov. This latest production, directed by YSD student Sarah Holdren, uses a script devised just a decade ago by Edward Kemp. The Kemp adaptation makes one off the lead characters a playwright rather than a novelist, pushing the theater elements even further.

THE MASTER AND MARGARITA can be seen Oct. 21 to 25 at Yale’s Iseman Theater, 1156 Chapel St., New Haven. Performances are Tuesday through Friday at 8 p.m. and Saturday at both 2 and 8 p.m. 203-4342-1234 and drama.yale.edu