Theatrical Novel
 First English edition | |
| Author | Mikhail Bulgakov |
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| Publisher | Hodder and Stoughton |
Publication date | 1967 |
| Pages | 224 |
Theatrical Novel (also A Dead Man's Memoir) is an unfinished novel by Mikhail Bulgakov. Written in first-person, on behalf of a writer Sergei Maksudov, the novel tells of the drama behind the scenes and the writers' world.
Work on it was begun on 26 November 1936. But even in 1929, Mikhail Bulgakov created a novel in letters "For Secret Friend" (also unfinished), addressed to his future wife Helen Bulgakova, which explains how he "became a playwright". In 1930, "For Secret Friend" took shape in the new novel, "The Theatre", but in the same year the writer burned his initial sketches, along with rough drafts of "The Novel About the Devil".
Only 6 years later, when he again was destroyed as a playwright, several weeks after the final break with Moscow Art Theatre Mikhail Bulgakov began writing a novel about the theater. On the first page of the manuscript, he outlined two names: "A Dead Man's Memoir" and "Theatrical Novel".
The book satirizes Stanislavsky through the character Ivan Vasilievich, whose methods hinder actors' performances, reflecting Bulgakov's frustration with Stanislavsky whilst attempting to stage "A Cabal of Hypocrites" in 1930–1936.
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