Flight and Bliss

Rating:
Summary: Great drama works
Review: Bulgakov is beloved for his novel "Master and Margarita", a surreal working of the Faust legend set in Stalinist Russia. These two plays "Flight" and "Bliss" show Bulgakov's real forte--drama. He authored plays (not published in his lifetime) and worked as a stage director (an assistant director, all he was allowed by the Soviet government, who knew him for an independent thinker.)

Both plays are very readable, despite the workaday translations. Bulgakov's flights of fancy and sarcasm (a future world without crime, for example) are comic yet scary. If you want to really get to know Bulgakov's work, these plays, plus "Heart of a Dog". "White Guard" and "Master and Margarita" make a good starting collection of his best works.