Meister und Margarita

The Devil is abroad in Moscow. Disguised as a foreign tourist, he and his inquisitive assistants bring chaos to the city, exposing banal greed, an arbitrary bureaucracy and the corrupt machinations of decent people.

Young Margarita makes a pact with the Devil to save her great love, the author and ‘Master’. When, in anticipatory obedience, the theatre management cancel his play about Pontius Pilate, the Master voluntarily takes himself off to a psychiatric hospital. The Devil, in turn, claims to know Pontius Pilate personally and seeks salvation for the Master and Margarita. Bulgakov’s masterpiece is a wild, surreal and poetic blend of satire, love story and metaphysical thriller.

Bulgakov, born in Kiev in 1891, suffered under Stalinist repression until his death in Moscow in 1940. His novel was first published in uncensored form in Paris in 1967 and immediately became a cult classic. How does evil come into the world? Does it have to exist as a precondition for good? And is cowardice the greatest sin of all?

With her new production, Jette Steckel poses the question of how significant the great moral authorities are for our lives in an overheated and disorientated present.

“Certainly, man is mortal, but that’s not the half of it. The worst thing is: he’s mortal all of a sudden. That’s the crux of the matter! Man can’t even say what he’s going to do that self-same evening.”

– from “The Master and Margarita”