The Master and Margarita

The Master and Margarita, based on the novel by Mikhail Bulgakov, will be performed under the direction of Artistic Director Satoshi Kamimura as our season opening performance.

Bulgakov's novel was written from 1929 to 1940. Viewed at the time as a criticism of the Soviet Union, Bulgakov's novel was only eventually published in a censored format in 1966, 26 years after his death, and publication of the complete version followed in 1973. Spectacularly depicting fantasy and reality, travel through time, human morality and love, and the immortality of art, this novel was later adapted for film, television drama and theatre. And today, it is renowned as one of the greatest 20th-century masterpieces of Russian literature.

This project presents a stage version (first performed in 2004) adapted by Edward Kemp, who has worked with the National Theatre in the UK and the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA), in which the protagonist, the Master, is reimagined as a playwright rather than a novelist. Satoshi Kamimura is directing a work by Bulgakov for the second time, following our 2024 performance of The White Guard, which received the 32nd Yomiuri Theatre Award for Outstanding Production.