The National stages Andrew Upton's vigorous new version of Mikhail Bulgakov's rarely performed masterpiece, unrivalled in its depiction of the near-farcical mayhem of civil war across a vast and vivid canvas.
In Kiev during the Russian Civil War, the Turbin household is sanctuary to a ragtag, close-knit crowd presided over by the beautiful Lena. As her brothers prepare to fight for the White Guard, friends charge in from the riotous streets amidst an atmosphere of heady chaos, quaffing vodka, keeling over, declaiming, taking baths, playing guitar, falling in love. But the new regime is poised and in its brutal triumph lies destruction for the Turbins and their world. And those are the real enemies we face, deep in the shadows.
This modern man with no name, no past, no love. This desperate hate-filled man born of loneliness and frustration. This man with nothing to be proud of, nothing he is part of.