“in the finale (a soprano) we will conquer… (basses) ideologically.” rip bulgakov you would have loved the “ba dum tss” sound effect.
one thing about bulgakov is that he’s an absolute comedic genius. compared to heart of a dog and the master and margarita this is definitely a much shallower work but he still employs irony so masterfully that it’s a rip roaring raucous rodeo piece of satire.
the matryoshka doll-esque narrative structure of this play is really interesting. the play within the play is a funny but obviously in-your-face critique that is meant to be interpreted tongue-in-cheek by bulgakov’s readers, but intended as propagandistic material for vasily arturych’s audience; the censorship that vasily arturych faces that forces the death of the author (“with one swoop, one scratch of a pen he kills me… well, here’s my chest, pierce it with a pencil”) takes place outside of his play such that somehow art is no longer an outlet for expression which now only takes place through random outbursts, but vasily’s outburst is at the same time the reason why bulgakov’s play was banned… bulgakov doesn’t even spend much time caricaturizing savva the censor since savva’s very presence within the play (where he actively interferes by participating in the rehearsal) is a caricature of censorship and its murder of theater in itself.
even putting aside all this meta theatrical stuff, bulgakov is a brilliant writer despite things probably being lost in translation: a beautiful monologue (that “he doesn’t write in the play [within a play]”)—“the attic, sixteen square yards and moonlight in place of a blanket… oh, you, my blind windows, miserly and pale dawn!… Down with the fires on Meshchansky Street… the stray dogs… Long live the sun… the ocean… The Crimson Island!”—and of course him finding his place within the tradition of russian literature—“his flaming heat does not fit into sixteen square yards; he needs the broad, free earth…” (a paraphrase of chekhov’s gooseberries written in response! to tolstoy’s how much land does a man need?).