Entrapped by a tyrant

For those who have come to think of Josef Stalin as a monster whose ruthless economic policies led to the death of millions of Russian peasants and whose paranoia made him send to their death thousands of those he believed to be his opponents, the first act of John Hodge’s Collaborators (St James Cavalier cinema from London’s National Theatre) should provide a shock.

At first Russell Beale’s Stalin looks like a man it would be fun to have a few drinks with but then his sinister personality begins to peep out- Paul Xuereb

It presents a picture of a Stalin who is jolly and extremely courteous to his guest, the dramatist Mikhail Bulgakov, whom it is clear he has long admired.

Bulgakov has long been opposed to Stalin’s oppressive techniques, so he and his wife Yelena and friends like the young writer Grigory and the old former aristocrat Vassily are surprised when Bulgakov receives an invitation for him to write a play about Stalin to celebrate the dictator’s 16th birthday.

Bulgakov accepts the invitation after some hesitation, and only after he is promised that his banned play Molière will be played again and again, after which he is summoned to the presence of Stalin.

When he tells Stalin he knows him too little to be able to write about him, Stalin surprises both the dramatist and the audience when he sits down at the typewriter in Bulgakov’s presence and begins to write the script himself.

He will not, however, let the writer just look on, but places before him a file of state papers through which Bulgakov must go, take a decision regarding each one of them, write it in the file and even write Stalin’s initials at the foot of each decision.

This extraordinary collaboration goes on for some time, and Bulgakov finds himself writing and signing decisions that, for some time he does not realise, will cruelly affect the people of Russia. He is flattered to find himself at the very seat of power, and it gratifies him when he is allowed a chauffeur-driven car for him to use, as well as good heating in his flat and decent food for him, his wife and friends to eat. Yelena and his friends, however, unlike him, begin to have suspicions that something sinister is going on.

Things come truly to a head in the second act when Bulgakov begins to realise the enormity of what he been persuaded to do, and he can take no more of it when Stalin asks him to sign decisions to execute people who are Stalin’s friends but whom he must eliminate for what he sees as reasons of state.

Now the Great Terror is at its worst: Bulgakov’s luxuries disappear, and so do his friends. His great friend and admirer Grigory whose literary works have been banned and who is forced to write a self-accusation commits suicide when Stalin’s pardon, obtained by Bulgakov after he is forced to sign the script of the play written by Stalin, arrives too late. Yelena, who has been arrested, is released, but the play has a dark ending.

Much of the second act gets progressively darker. Even Vladimir, an NKVD officer who has a love-hate relationship with Bulgakov, has been deputed to direct the play about Stalin and whom we see rehearsing some hero-worshipping scenes from the play supposedly by Bulgakov, ends up feeling disgusted by it and by Stalin, and he too disappears in the Great Terror.

The play is performed in the National Theatre’s smallest house, the Cotteslo, in studio form and with a minimum of set.

Nicholas Hytner, who directs, has concentrated on the personalities of the two protagonists, played by outstanding actors, Simon Russell Beale as Stalin and Alec Jennings as Bulgakov, but also creates cunningly the atmosphere in Bolgakov’s apartment where he lives with three others he has been made to accommodate, with its fears but also with its laughter and longing for a better life.

Russell Beale’s Stalin hits one immediately. At first he sounds and looks like a man it would be fun to have a few drinks with, and it is only when he begins to work subtly on Bulgakov that his sinister personality begins to peep out.

When he comes out in his fearfulness in the second act he does not rage, but his voice becomes intense and his pauses are threatening.

He comes out as the beastly man he is when he spells out how and why he has been working on Bulgakov as he has all along.

No wonder Jennings’ Bulgakov, a cultural aristocrat, is such as broken man at the end, now realising how wickedly he has been used and abused. Hodge shows up Bulgakov as a man whose defence of free writing is limited by his personal pride.

He badly wants his banned Molière to continue to be staged, and it is this above all that makes him agree to the play about Stalin. At the end he signs the play Stalin has written when he sees his world toppling about his ears.

The play makes a connection between Molière’s death on stage as he is depicted inBulgakov’s play about him, and Bulgakov’s fate.

The whole cast is strong, but I particularly enjoyed Mark Addys’ Vladimir with his grim irony.

This is a secondary part but the vivid performance makes it as memorable as a principal one.