ARCHIVES 1999 / Maïstora i Margarita

A multi-media performance from Bulgarian director Stephane Moskov for his production of Le Maître et Marguerite by Boulgakov. The flashing lights of an electronic newspaper, a cinema screen, documentary pictures, grotesque cartoon characters and cartoon films all feature. The question is which medium, theatre or cinema takes centre stage ? Expanses of light, like those devastating ones belonging to a world in a state of revolution: broken icons, Lenin haranguing the crowd in a documentary film shot, a man typing away at his interminably long work on crumpled paper... Marguerite or Faust, Jesus or Satan, who wins in this performance ? The virtuosity of the images, stage scenes and the film screens constitute the real character in this play. The actors as well, barely seen on stage, disappear at the will of the creator, to reappear elsewhere. They are virtual characters struggling for human recognition amidst biting humour, amusement and tragic irony. This production is an improvised carnival for a ghosts' ball.