Walking into the theatre as an Aussie who’s mad for Bulgakov’s unhinged masterpiece but doesn’t speak a lick of Russian aside from a few swear words, ordering vodka and some pleasantries, I’m already leaning into the absurd.
The first stop? The bar. Here, I am raising a couple of vodka shots at the bar and voicing “vashé zdorovye” in unison with my good Polish mate along for the ride while surveying my surrounds. I can feel the anticipatory vibe of the crowd.
While I am in one of my favourite Brisbane live performance venues, tonight it carries the din of fluent Russian dialogue. I feel like a tourist in my own town. By the time we take our seats, I have become fully aware there will be no surtitles, no safety net – just my memory of that hallucinatory novel and a quiet nod to theatrical chaos. Yep. I’m surrendering myself fully to the unknown – appropriately enough for a story where the Devil drops into Moscow to dismantle reality.
The lights dim, the curtains are drawn to reveal the characters to us, the expectant audience. The stage is simple, fixed: a park bench to the side, Woland’s throne in red and gold sitting back and centre under a heavy full moon backdrop, and a fire crackling opposite the bench. No fancy scene changes, no shifting staircases or balconies – just these few pieces holding the entire crazy cosmos together, asking us to imagine the rest.
Latvian, Ivars Kalniņš as Woland is sitting poised on his throne and flanked by his henchmen. He is smirking like he’s seen this audience’s soul and judged it delightfully corrupt. Not your fire-and-brimstone devil, more like a stiff bureaucrat from hell’s HR department, quietly judging everyone’s sins with that infuriating, knowing grin. The chaos unfurls before us.
Russian dialogue flooding the theatre like thick incense – rapid, dense, impossible for me to catch a word. But that’s the whole point. I’m not translating, I’m feeling it – the rhythm, the pulse. Just like the drums pounding. The actors aren’t just speaking, they’re moving through it, casting spells with voice and gesture. The language crashes over me like a storm, and I’m letting it wash through without fighting it.
Ukrainian actress, Veronika Moroz appears to be the humanoid transformation of Behemoth. I take this from the subtle gestures, mischievous expressions, and stylised paw-like movement. She brings a sophisticated twist playing up the dark humour, the quick wit, the gleeful chaos of Behemoth, while evoking that eerie, magical realism central to Bulgakov’s world.
Before us, the actors are not just speaking, but dancing, incanting to the score. Meaning moving through tone, gesture, and staging instead. Letting the language wash over like a storm, not needing to translate it – just absorbing the thunder. I also take a stab that Alexey Avramenko is Koroviev, Woland's right-hand.
Margarita bursts onto the scene, wild-eyed and fierce, not walking so much as emerging from shadow. She’s burning off shame, flying naked (implied nakedness) through the air like vengeance with eyeliner. Her pain doesn’t need translation – it’s screaming in the space between words, lighting the air with desperate longing for the Master.
Everything else is conjured in our heads. The fixed set turns into ancient Jerusalem or 1930s Moscow, offices or moonlit realms – not by changing props, but by lighting, sound, and raw imagination. The fire flickers like a pissed-off god, but it is the strobing stage lights that fully give impact creating menacing shadows while the actors cavort dancing with their own flavour of menace or mercy.
The score continues to slither through scenes – sometimes lullaby, sometimes threat – dragging us in and out of madness with eerie calm. Behemoth and Koroviev even play air violin with a dark humour.
I catch flickers of the novel’s landmarks – Berlioz’s decapitation, the Satanic ball a swirling charade, Margarita’s dark pact – all staged with flair that drowns out the need to understand every word. Farce and tragedy, myth and satire, love and cosmic joke piling on like vodka shots on an empty gut.
The pace tightens for the last 40 minutes post interval. The Master hiding in manuscripts, Pilate weighed down with guilt and headaches, everyone locked in their tragic loops. The moments pile up – heads in laps, silent confessions, and the inevitable reckoning. No fancy set changes, just the same bench and throne, but everything feels heavier, more urgent.
We think it is over and applaud loudly for the cast and their intriguing and artfully delivered adaptation. However, like an encore we weren’t expecting, it concludes with a haunting song whose last notes hang in the air about our dishevelled minds until a loud applause erupts to snuff it. It sounds familiar, but I can’t name it. A fitting end to a night spent in the company of devils, dreams, and things just out of reach.
Walking out, still unsure exactly what I’ve witnessed, but knowing it’s exactly what Bulgakov would’ve wanted. A devil who never lies – just pulls back the curtain on the ridiculous truths hiding in plain sight.
Not understanding Russian? Perfect. Getting Bulgakov? Maybe. Living it? Absolutely.
Unmissable. Untranslatable (by me). Unholy in the best possible way.
