Bulgakov’s The Crimson Island at the Moscow Kamerny Theatre

• In Event: The Politics of Drama in the Stalin Era: Radicalism, Reaction, Adaptation

Abstract

Mikhail Bulgakov’s play The Crimson Island received its world premiere at the Moscow Kamerny Theatre on December 11, 1928, a production directed by Alexander Tairov and Lukianov, with designs by Vadim Ryndin and music by Metner. Bulgakov’s satire about censorship, performed for the censors, took particular aim at Vladimir Blium, who was head of the theatre division of Glavrepertkom (the Central Repertory Committee) for much of the 1920s––though Blium left his position the month the play premiered. It also was a satire about the deadliness (to use Peter Brook’s term) of artistic hackwork, even when––or especially when––it serves a good cause: here, the October Revolution. Looking back on the history of Stalinist artistic repression, it seems baffling now that a play so directly critical of censorship could not only be passed by the censors, but also could run for a full season. Glavrepertkom did pass the play, however, after which the production ran 64 times before closing in June 1929. All of Bulgakov’s plays were banned shortly after. The Kamerny went on, however, to develop one of the most acclaimed productions of the Soviet period: Vishnevsky’s An Optimistic Tragedy (1933)––a model for Socialist Realism in the theatre. Only when the Kamerny fell out of favor (1936) and finally was liquidated (1949) was The Crimson Island used retroactively as incontrovertible proof of the Kamerny’s disservice to the State.
The creation, significance, and repression of The Crimson Island from Bulgakov’s perspective have all been well documented. This paper instead will draw on a variety of archival sources––the censor’s copy of the play, production designs, photographs, and reviews––to investigate the significance and subsequent reverberations of the Kamerny’s production of Bulgakov’s play.

Author

• Dassia N. Posner, Northwestern U