How capriciously the deck is shuffled.
Blood tells.
One of the most beautiful love stories ever told. One of the most subversive and slyly funny novels of the twentieth century.
In the hands of Daniel Schlusser Ensemble, Mikhail Bulgakov’s anarchic epic The Master and Margarita is funnelled through a contemporary context of political incarceration and sees religion, atheism and the politics of post-capitalism combust in a frenzy of dramatic defiance. From heart-breaking intimacy to explosive punk spectacle, M+M traverses the extremes of theatrical experience.
“…out of this tension evolves, with a flawless emotional logic, moments of stunning beauty that destroy the premises of theatrical representation and reach beyond them to a raw but irresistible truthfulness, a reality which exists wholly in the present moment. It’s impossible to describe the transformations that transpire in the course of the performance. Slowly, patiently, the metaphors shift: the performance ceases to represent and instead becomes a pure theatrical act.”
Alison Croggon, ABC Arts
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“This is an intelligent inquiry into a canonical text, but also a freeform, chaotic stage event; a Lynchian phantasmagoria, through which elements of Bulgakov’s novel refract with dreamlike logic…its emotional impact is direct, and devastating. Simultaneously vast and elliptical, it does more than justice to the complexity of the source material.”
Jana Perkovic, The Guardian
Full Review
“Schlusser’s images are startling, visceral in their violence and beauty, yet artifice, humour and mundanity are never far away.”
Rebecca Harkins-Cross, The Age
Full Review
Related Content
ABC Radio National
Michael Cathcart – Interview with Daniel Schlusser
Vimeo
Trailer – M+M
Credits
Performers
Johnny Carr, Josh Price, Nikki Shiels, Karen Sibbing, Emily Tomlins, Mark Winter, Edwina Wren
Writer
Daniel Schlusser Ensemble, inspired by Mikhael Bulgakov’s novel The Master and Margarita
Director
Daniel Schlusser
Assistant Director
Katya Shevstov
Designers
Romanie Harper, Anna Cordingley
Lighting Designers
Nicola Andrews, Niklas Pajanti
Composer/ Live Musician
Michael Pulsford
Composers/Sound Designers
Darrin Verhagen, James Paul
Producer
Sarah Ernst for Daniel Schlusser Ensemble in partnership with Melbourne Festival, Theatre Works, Hothouse Theatre (development partner), and with thanks to the Charlie Fund.
PREMIERE
October 8, 2013