Stalin Pens Melodrama, Author Turns Tyrannical in London Farce

In 1938, Joseph Stalin commissioned the gadfly author Mikhail Bulgakov to write a play. The subject was to be the Soviet leader’s early years. A professional hangman couldn’t have fashioned a neater noose.

Screenwriter John Hodge (“Trainspotting,” “The Beach”) makes this historical incident the basis of his first stage play, “Collaborators,” now starring Simon Russell Beale and Alex Jennings at the National Theatre in London. Nicholas Hytner directs.