And so the show is onstage, with Professor Woland seated, the black cat prancing about, and Fagot/Korovyov taking over the act. What is promised is black magic tricks and an expose, but the magic is beyond comprehension except for its purpose to seemingly bring the worst out in the audience.
Money falls from the ceiling, women are invited onstage to exchange their old clothes for Parisian haute couture, and the black cat takes off the MC’s head. The expose becomes one of telling the deep dark secret of a major theater personality in the presence of his wife.
Bulgakov has the audience act almost to the man in exposing the evil side of humanity, the greed, the bloodthirst, the weakness in bending to mob mentality. Whether or not he meant this as insight into the Russia of his time, I don’t know. It doesn’t matter; I see it, read about it every day.
The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology