Collaborators : A Play

Taking its inspiration from historical fact, Collaborators explores the intense, paradoxical, and ultimately deadly friendship between the dissident writer Mikhail Bulgakov and Josef Stalin, centering around a play which Bulgakov was forced to write to commemorate Stalin's sixtieth birthday. Stalin has been in power for 16 years and his purges are at their zenith. Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita is lying unpublished in a desk drawer, and his latest play Molière has been banned following terrible reviews in Pravda. As a secret policeman dryly puts it, this has opened up a convenient “gap in his schedule.” This “gap” is to be filled by a play of Stalin’s life which Bulgakov will write. The NKVD has even kindly found him an office in the notorious Lubyanka prison: a venue that would focus any writer’s mind. But as Bulgakov loses himself in a world of secrets, threats, and paradoxes, and begins to fall ill from the liver disease that would eventually kill him, his feverish dreams of conversations with Stalin become reality in his brain, just as the state’s lies become truths in his play. Collaborators is a darkly comic portrait of the impossible choices facing any artist in a dictatorship. This “gripping, disturbing, and often blackly comic drama” explores the historic connection between Stalin and Russian author Mikhail Bulgakov (The Daily Telegraph, UK).A “rare and special” play by the screenwriter of Trainspotting and Shallow Grave, Collaborators is inspired by the true story of another play: one that Mikhail Bulgakov was forced to write in commemoration Joseph Stalin's sixtieth birthday (The Times, UK).Moscow, 1938. Stalin has been in power for sixteen years and his purges are underway. Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita is lying unpublished in a desk drawer, and his latest play Molière has been banned following terrible reviews in Pravda. As a secret policeman dryly puts it, this has opened up a convenient “gap in his schedule.” This “gap” is to be filled by writing a play about Stalin's life.As Bulgakov loses himself in a world of secrets, threats, and paradoxes, he begins to fall ill from kidney disease. His feverish dreams of conversations with Stalin become reality in his mind, just as the state's lies become truths in his play. Collaborators is a darkly comic portrait of the impossible choices facing an artist living under dictatorship, and a surreal journey into the imagination of a writer as he loses himself in the subject of his drama.Winner of the 2012 Laurence Olivier Awards Best New Play Taking its inspiration from historical fact, Collaborators explores the intense, paradoxical, and ultimately deadly connection between the dissident writer Mikhail Bulgakov and Josef Stalin, centering around a play that Bulgakov was forced to write to commemorate Stalin's sixtieth birthday. As Bulgakov loses himself in a world of secrets, threats, and paradoxes, and begins to fall ill from the kidney disease that would eventually kill him, his feverish dreams of conversations with Stalin become reality in his mind, just as the state's lies become truths in his play. Collaborators is a darkly comic portrait of the impossible choices facing any artist in a dictatorship, and a surreal journey into the imagination of a writer who loses himself in a macabre relationship with the omnipotent subject of his drama.