The Master & Margarita

In a mesmerising theatrical masterpiece, the devil will make Surry Hills home from 11 November to 17 December, as Belvoir brings to life Mikhail Bulgakov’s literary masterpiece ‘The Master & Margarita’.

Adapted and directed by Belvoir’s artistic director Eamon Flack, Bulgakov’s novel became a legend long before it was published, written in secret in the gloom of repression and passed around under the nose of the 1940’s Stalinist state police.

An actor enters with a battered copy of Mikhail Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita, and begins to read aloud from the opening chapter.

We’re in a city run by fools and mediocrities. Elites protect their power, thinkers squabble over trivia, everyone is consumed by greed and materialism. And sitting on a park bench in this city is the Devil himself. Why is he here?

The story that follows is wild, joyful and magnificent. The tale unfurls from ancient Galilee to Stalin’s Moscow, via a giant talking cat, a mad novelist, a ruthless officer of the secret police... At its centre is Margarita, who has become driven to risk it all to save a lost manuscript – and us all.