Mikhail Bulgakov

the status of the dramatist and the status of the text

Lesley Milne

pp. 236-259

in: Robert Russell, Andrew Barratt (eds), Russian theatre in the age of modernism, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 1990

Abstract

The theatrical authority of a play or dramatist is based on the accumulated experience of major productions, which start in the country of origin in the dramatist's lifetime and spread, geographically and historically. This creates the cultural context in which each subsequent major production utters its own "new word" for its own place and time. History has robbed Mikhail Bulgakov's plays of this theatrical authority.