After reading an article in the Pitch imploring me to see the Master and Margarita at the UMKC I knew I had to go. The Master and Margarita is one of only a few books that I read more than once and discovered something new every time. It is also one of a few Russian masterpieces that no matter how well translated could not be fully understood by a foreigner (that would be you); it’s somewhat similar to me trying to decipher Cris Packham’s pop-cultural references (not that I don’t try). The book was written during the times of the strictest censorship when even a hint of anti-Soviet criticism could literally threaten the writer’s life and that’s why Mikhail Bulgakov had to insinuate just as much as he wrote down. The average Soviet reader could easily read “between the lines” and see the satire in the most innocent dialogues and descriptions. Some of the references were to the specific characters in the author’s life and are not easily recognizable but the barbs thrown at the Soviet bureaucrats, censors, informers, dimwits, careerists, sellouts and the regime itself were obvious to the people who still encountered them in their everyday life for another 50 years after the book was written.
Not too many people risked producing it on the stage or on the screen, it could not be easily condensed and the characters were so well-known and beloved that any such attempt would be criticized by the fans. That’s why I was pretty skeptical going to the UMKC performance. I didn’t expect the cast to have an understanding of the book required to convey it onto the stage and it couldn’t possibly be shortened to fit into the regular length of the theater performance. What I saw was pretty amazing and truly one of the best theatrical performances I’ve seen in my life – honest, funny, enthusiastic, smart, inventive and, although not very close to the book, with plenty of Blugakov’s spirit in it. Once you get past the fact that some male roles are played by girls (i.e. Koroviev and Azazello), the character of the devil – Woland is wearing hooves, and the Cat Behemoth is a black guy with the red Mohawk dressed in some kind of leather corset and a shaggy trench coat, everything else falls in place. The actors were outstanding but Patrick DuLaney who played Woland was on par with the Russian actors who played this role in the movie versions of the Master and Margarita. He was able to convey Woland’s millenniums-old age, his exhaustion with life, his disgust with people which could only be defeated by the true love and selfless sacrifice. Julane Havens as Margarita was also very impressive, as a sensitive, sensual, defenseless but determined woman ready to sacrifice everything just to be with Master. The actress who played Hella gets a special mention, nice job keeping every male eye locked on the stage!
I also would like to specifically praise the costume and stage design. The Soviet people are all dressed in the same gray uniforms lovingly adorned by red stars; even their underwear is gray (as was revealed later and you missed it). I also liked the use of projection screens.
During the show I (illegally) made a few videos, sorry, serious-looking-bearded-usher-guy, I didn’t spend years in the KGB school in the USSR to be told what to do by the Man.
(By the way, in the bottom part of these videos you’ll see a jackass who didn’t feel it was necessary to take his stupid hat off in the theater; maybe the usher should have concerned himself with this view-obstructing clown instead of making sure I can’t record a low-quality video.)
httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPQqevnTdiw
httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sw9F3GrppVM
httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOpHIxKJqdk
After the show I overheard one lady ask her friend if she enjoyed the show, “it was too weird” was the reply. It’s hard to convey the whole complexity of the book on the stage to an unprepared viewer, but to people who understood it was an amazing effort worthy of a professional venue.
P.S. Alan Scherstuhl is my new Facebook friend on the condition that I will never have to pronounce his last name.
Readers of this blog submitted far better captions than the underwhelming A/C advertisement from the company which is famous for annoying the radio listeners with various renditions of its jingle. I may not be an expert on puns but if you used “hot wife-hot wife” combination, doesn’t it follow that your wife will be less hot when you fix the A/C and it’s in your best interest to keep the A/C not working or you would have to go back to seeing you plain ol’ nothot wife? By the way, the caption contest is open for another week.
I saw this sign yesterday:
I wonder who is the ad-wizard who came up with this one? At the time when “unusual banking” already helped you lose your job, your house, your savings and pension, maybe some usual banking is in order now? Like the kind the doesn’t bankrupt the country. Just an idea.
Lastly, things like this never get old (sorry for the quality, I recorded this from my TV screen):
httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ebqvm9Nvv90
Update: I forgot that I had this photo of a t-shirt in the window of a local religious-supply store:
Here we see the Lord doing push-ups in his own gym with the cross representing “the sin of the world” on his back. The caption “bench press this” is confusing unless the t-shirt is hanging upside-down, then the Lord would be lying on the cross and bench-pressing the rock. I am just saying: Lord would know the difference between the push-up and bench-press, that’s all.
Long time ago (and I mean long,long time) I was traveling in what was then a beautiful and welcoming Republic of Georgia, still a part of soon to be defunct Soviet Union. Georgia is known for its beauty, Caucasus mountains and warm beaches on the Black Sea, ancient cultural relics, great food and some of the best wine in the world, and as the birthplace of Joseph Stalin. Stalin was born in the City of Gori which was a huge source of pride for the Georgian people. When Stalin was alive, his portraits, monuments and various other likenesses were literally everywhere. After Stalin’s Cult of Personality was condemned in 1956 most of this junk was removed and one of the few places that kept all of it’s pre-1956 glory was the City of Gori. From the huge portrait of Stalin at the entrance to the railway station to his monument and museum at his birthplace, complete with Stalin’s personal rail car, the city looked like the old days when it was the Birthplace of the “beloved” leader.
By the time I was born all of the history books and movies were edited not to dwell on Stalin’s persona and the horrors during his regime. In the movies he was shown as a wise man of a few words, issuing battle-winning military directives, and in the books there may have been a mention or two about the cult of personality. It wasn’t a secret but it wasn’t talked about either. As it turned out later,everything was much worse than it was presented in 1956. So when I found myself staring in amazement at something I have never seen in my lifetime, I didn’t really think twice about standing at the birthplace of evil, on the contrary, it was neat to take a step back in time.
A lot has changed since I stood next to the Stalin’s rail car in Gori. There is no Soviet Union, Georgia is not so welcoming anymore, and I don’t have curls. I found this old photo in my album and thought about my careless youth and fun memories I still have from that time.
Continuing my previous post about the comparison of the American and the Soviet education systems I will now post a few photos of Stephen Lapekas – Alexei Kutzkov’s American counterpart.
Lapekas became a Navy pilot, then a commercial pilot for TWA; I am told Kutzkov works for the Russian equivalent of the FAA.
Despite the seemingly different education systems in the Soviet Union and the United States, the article didn’t mention that the most important factor was not how the students were educated but how their country utilized their talent and knowledge after the graduation. In the USSR the graduate was likely to be drafted to serve in the military and after eventually graduating from college be assigned a low-paying job anywhere in the country. Most of the intellectual jobs such as engineering, science and medicine were paying less than manual labor to maintain the socialist class hierarchy, where intelligentsia was not considered a class like workers and peasants, but was tolerated as a mid-layer in order to serve the cause of the working class. Therefore, a welder was making more money than a doctor or a scientist with a PhD.
In the end, the quality of life was probably better for the fun-loving American kid, than for his serious Soviet counterpart, whose abilities could not deliver him the material success he deserved.
Here we see the Lord doing push-ups in his own gym with the cross representing “the sin of the world” on his back. The caption “bench press this” is confusing unless the t-shirt is hanging upside-down, then the Lord would be lying on the cross and bench-pressing the rock. I am just saying: Lord would know the difference between the push-up and bench-press, that’s all.
Long time ago (and I mean long,long time) I was traveling in what was then a beautiful and welcoming Republic of Georgia, still a part of soon to be defunct Soviet Union. Georgia is known for its beauty, Caucasus mountains and warm beaches on the Black Sea, ancient cultural relics, great food and some of the best wine in the world, and as the birthplace of Joseph Stalin. Stalin was born in the City of Gori which was a huge source of pride for the Georgian people. When Stalin was alive, his portraits, monuments and various other likenesses were literally everywhere. After Stalin’s Cult of Personality was condemned in 1956 most of this junk was removed and one of the few places that kept all of it’s pre-1956 glory was the City of Gori. From the huge portrait of Stalin at the entrance to the railway station to his monument and museum at his birthplace, complete with Stalin’s personal rail car, the city looked like the old days when it was the Birthplace of the “beloved” leader.
