Moliere or the League of Hypocrites

I have always found an expedition to the tiny Finborough theatre near Earls Court well worth while, so I was keen to see this rarely peformed play by Mikhail Bulgakov.  The last time it was seen here was nearly 30 years ago when Antony Sher took the title role for the RSC.  Unfortunately, it was a disappointing evening.  The play resonates for a Russian audience because they all know that when Bulgakov wrote about Moliere's persecution at the hands of a shadowy religious cabal and a tyrannical monarch, he was writing the story of his own persecution at the hands of Stalin.  It's surprising in a way that a play with such clear parallels even reached the rehearsal room in 1930s Russia.  After years in rehearsal at the Moscow Arts Theatre, it finally got into performance but was pulled after communist party critics panned it.  This was the period when Shostakovich's Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk suffered the same fate.  Unfortunately, for an English audience the play has to stand or fall on its merits, and is handicapped not only by our distance from Bulgakov's life but by the inadequacies of Michael Glenny's translation.  Glenny was a famously prolific translator from Russian but more noted for the quantity than the quality of his work, and he had no ear for stage dialogue. When characters address each other as 'you tawdry coxcomb' and 'you young puppy' the battle is already lost.  This production looks cramped on the tiny Finborough stage and rarely rises above the level of a moderately competent student production, though the actors, led by Justin Avoth as Moliere, struggle courageously with the clunky dialogue.  Is it a good play?  I'm not sure.  I just hope that next time it is revived (if there is a next time) someone either goes back to the Russian original or does a fresh version based on Glenny's over-literal translation. Perhaps Michael Frayn could have a go?  Bulgakov is a fascinating writer and I'm looking forward to the National Theatre's production of The White Guard next year.