About the work
Mysterium buffo is a "heroic, epic and satirical picture of our age" in six acts by Vladimir Mayakovsky. The first version was completed by September 1918 and premiered on 7 November 1918, the first anniversary of the October Revolution, at the Communal Theatre of Musical Drama in Petrograd, staged by Vsevolod Meyerhold together with the author.
Plot
After a new flood, the "Clean" (aristocrats, capitalists) and the "Unclean" (workers) take refuge together on an ark. The Unclean rebel against the Clean, pass through Hell and Paradise, and finally reach a communist Promised Land.
Cultural significance
Widely regarded as the first Soviet propaganda play staged, Mysterium buffo breaks with the proscenium arch: a prologue has the stage explicitly "extend into the auditorium". A revised second version premiered in Moscow in 1921, again under Meyerhold.