All rather serious stuff one might imagine but between Hodge’s play and Hytner’s production, things are given a rather jaunty spin, closer to the realm of fantasia, as the tone is set by the opening cartoonish sequence from which this farcical nightmare plays out on Bob Crowley’s twisting thrust stage. Alex Jennings’ Bulgakov presides over a bustling household of friends and neighbours - Jacqueline Defferary’s compassionate wife, Patrick Godfrey’s old relic Vassily and particularly William Postlethwaite’s intense young writer Grigory standing out – and their chaotic domestic situation is full of explosive character. Throw in scenes of the new play that is being written, a hagiography of Stalin’s beginnings, that is being directed by an NKVD officer with artistic visions, Mark Addy on bumptious form, and also from Bulgakov’s own plays – the final scene of
Molière or The League of Hypocrites was one I recognised – and the melting pot of Russian madness is set.
But Hodge’s play is centrally concerned with this imagined relationship between Stalin and Bulgakov and the compromises that the artist has to make in dealing with a patron with such power. Because we’re in this quirky over-emphasised world, Simon Russell Beale’s Stalin is a wild-eyed caricature, a rather comic figure (even without the Saturday night audience of over-laughers) despite everything. And if we had remained in the realm of fantasy then this might have made more sense, but the tone gets increasingly darker as the benefits of Stalin’s patronage are outweighed by the pernicious effects of the repressive regime getting ever closer to his loved ones. Hodge has Bulgakov be a rather idealistic figure who believes he could change the system from within but it is hard to credit such naïveté from anyone who had lived under Stalin, never mind from a man whose very livelihood had been so severely curtailed. I had my doubts from the outset about treating Stalin with such a light comic touch and my misgivings solidified as this fantasy increasingly borrowed from real life in order to shade in a more serious tone.
Whilst watching it the play left me baffled and even now, I'm still unsure as to how I really felt about it. I never really knew how seriously we were meant to take the writing, with doubts stemming from my increasing unease at playwrights who meld fact and fiction this way, without emerging with some greater truth or clear message: there's much of interest in Bulgakov's biographical history that is frustratingly unexplored here. For that was the problem in the end, a lack of purpose, of a real sense of driving dramatic narrative or even an overarching revelatory point being made by this play despite its slyly satirical notes. The National Theatre do seem to struggle when it comes to new writing, especially in the Cottesloe and though it has evident appeal with its star casting, Collaborators ultimately felt like a disappointment with its difficult pairing of fact and fiction.
Running time: 2 hours 30 minutes (with interval)
Programme cost: £2.50
Booking until 21st January at the moment, the show is sold out but day seats and £5 standing tickets are available, and it has been announced that the show will extend - the next booking period opens in November. Collaborators will also be screened as part of NT Live on 1st December in cinemas all over the place.