Book description
See? All we need is... a map and...some kind of plan. This overcoat
is neutral darling, neither Bolshevik nor Menshevik. Just essence of
Prole. In Kiev during the Russian Civil War, the Turbin household is
sanctuary to a ragtag, close-knit crowd presided over by the beautiful
Lena. As her brothers prepare to fight for the White Guard, friends
charge in from the riotous streets amidst an atmosphere of heady
chaos, quaffing vodka, keeling over, declaiming, taking baths, playing
guitar, falling in love. But the new regime is poised and in its
brutal triumph lies destruction for the Turbins and their world. And
those are the real enemies we face, deep in the shadows. This modern
man with no name, no past, no love. This desperate hate-filled man
born of loneliness and frustration. This man with nothing to be proud
of, nothing he is part of. . .
Andrew Upton is Artistic Director of the Sydney Theatre Company,
where his first play, Hanging Man, was staged in 2002, followed by
Riflemind in 2007. He has adapted a number of classics for the company,
and in 2007 his version of Gorky's Philistines was seen at the National
Theatre in London, followed by Bulgakov's The White Guard. He wrote the
films Bangers (1999), which he also directed, and Gone (2006), and the
libretto for Alan John's opera Through the Looking Glass (2008).
