Experimental Blog #85

Comments on 2 plays, "Zoykina's Apartment" and "Crimson Island" by Mikhail Bulgakov

A M Smelyansky, V V Gudkova, and A A Neanov supplied many pages of necessary information and notes in this volume of the collected works of Mikhail Bulgakov.

The first play, "Zoykina's Apartment", is considered to be a comedy, and it was completed and it premiered in 1926. V V Gudkova says that the Soviet press gave more attention in the years 1926 and 1927 to Mikhail Bulgakov than to any other dramatist. Besides playing in Moscow, "Zoykina's Apartment" played in Leningrad, Saratov, Tiflis, the Crimea, Rostov on the Don, Simferapol, Riga, and Sverdlovsk, and maybe other places; and everywhere it had "material success".

However, there was almost unanimous condemnation from the critics; who used a very great amount of "political labeling and accusation": "counterrevolutionary, lack of sympathy for the serious problems facing the Bolsheviks, rehabilitation of the past", and many, many other charges. The play was performed about 200 times before it was taken of the stage in 1929.

The second play, "Crimson Island", was finished and premiered in 1928. It is characterized as "parody and sharp satire". It seems to contrast with "Zoykina's Apartment", and it was part of the politically "left theater" of the times. "Crimson Island" is extremely "fantastical" and has numerous "unexpected transformations of scenes" and other theatrical devices.

However, the "overwhelming majority of the press" was also sharply negative about this play too. Joseph Stalin also gave his negatve evaluation of "Crimson Island". The play was staged more than 60 times before March of 1929 when it was apparently no longer allowed to be performed.