complicite, master and margarita

                                         

The musical correspondence between various elements in complicite reflect collective creation, presence of casts in the moment, and percise directing. No wander why he direct Opera. Here is theatre synchronisation of music, light, sound, actors, can't go more precise.  If anyone has a hyperactive mind like me, would appreciate pace of the work. It reflect how brain jump from one subject or memory to another.  Schizophrenic relationship of the narrative along with time travels, from Moscow to hell was believable, and all the fragments started to have meaning after a while. Everything seemed to be committed to the story. Time was as crucial for all the cast as it is for musitians in an orchestra. It felt that they had to perform bar of music in a right time. I am drwan to sensory heightened aspect of it, which was also a criticism for some people. He recreated a surreal Russian novel on the stage using both simple objects and technological mediums purposefully.  Use of magic tricks was surprising but the experience lasted longer than seeing an illusionist and that owes to Bulgakov  timeless story. Use of opposites both in terms of content and form lead audience from one end to the other while offering variations. Opposites such as casting the same actor for devil and Jesus, mirroring actors with projection, mirroring audience on the stage, contrasts of humour and tragedy. You'd get very close to drama by directing audience to humour. It is also clever to choose such a fragmental absurd novel for theatre since it is almost impossible to adapt it for film successfully. Devils and monsters are disappointing in films, except for early cinema that things weren't so real perhaps.

Here is the film of Master and Margarita. 

 

I'm also interested in the fact that he improvise the whole work 'unknowns that reveal themeselves in the process'. This is what we do as fine artists. Such plasticity is impossible to afford in film production. With improvisation one rely on instinct rather than polluted rational decisions; it put us in touch with wealth of unconscious material; it is a state of transforming chaos to from; and it is core of creation in any discipline.  A writer, painter or composer start from blank canvas and improvisation comes naturally. In a collective creation like theatre that a group start from a story, the only way to find the blank canvas to create a new world is improvisation. 

Also the fact that complicite use suggestions and story is completed in mind of audience bring it very close to practice of fine art. What's great about theatre is that it doesn't impose full vision like a film; it leave space for audience to imagine using their own vision. In that sense good theatre is hand in hand with story. When one read a story one imagine it freely. Giving such freedom to audience when adapting a story is more essential than making the story word by word. That's how Moscow was experienced in London for me seeing Master and Margarita.