A Satanic Takedown of Soviet Society ANNANDALE-ON-HUDSON, N.Y. - It's not easy to make an orgy feel fresh these days. They're putting on a really big bacchanal at the Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts at Bard College, with naked ladies, skulls to drink blood from and even, for your viewing pleasure, the decapitation of this shindig's M.C. Still, I couldn't help thinking that I'd already attended this party, the centerpiece of Bard SummerScape's callow adaptation of Mikhail Bulgakov's "Master and Margarita," the chef-d'oeuvre of Russian literature from the age of Stalin. I am not an inveterate orgy-goer (if you have pictures that say otherwise, they've been Photoshopped, really), but I am an inveterate theatergoer. And I found myself checking off just where I'd previously seen each lurid element as it materialized on stage. That wheyfaced man in the corset? The Rocky Horror Show. The reflective walls that turn the audience into part of the Dionysian throng? Harold Prince's original production of "Cabaret." The creepy white masks the audience is asked to put on? Any interactive production by Punchdrunk, including the long-running "Sleep No More." The flashing disco ball and the name-checking of notorious dictators among the guests? Those can be found at the Public Theater these days in the David Byrne musical "Here Lies Love." No wonder the party's host looked so very ennui-ridden. That would be the Devil himself, traveling under the name Woland and played with infinite, entertaining jadedness by the Belgian actor Ronald Guttman. When it comes to divine, or even infernal, decadence, there really is nothing new under the full moon. Such world-weariness isn't entirely typical of this "Master and Margarita," staged by the eminent international film and theater director Janos Szasz, with a script by Mr. Szasz and Gideon Lester, the director of theater programs at Bard College. The production runs through Sunday. More often the tone is one of gung-ho collegiate bravura, with everybody performing at high energy and high volume. The prevailing atmosphere is of people trying very hard to show that they're not intimidated by one of the most intricately layered, philosophically ambitious masterworks of world literature. Such exhausting fervor is understandable. Theater and film artists have been trying for years to capture Bulgakov's sui generis blend of fantasy, satire and ontology, in which the Devil pays a troublemaking visit to 1930s Moscow. A Russian television serialization from 2008 devoted 10 52-minute episodes to retelling the story, while Mr. Szasz has only two-and-a-half-plus hours of stage time. But his rambunctious approach doesn't begin to convey the suave narrative assurance of Bulgakov, whose voice has the matter-of-fact seductiveness of fairy tales. Often the production - which features Arliss Howard as the Bulgakov-like playwright called the Master and Stephanie Roth Haberle as his inamorata, Margarita - feels both flat and frantic. That said, Mr. Szasz and Mr. Lester have managed to set out the novel's principal themes, and a surprising number of its main events, with honorable clarity. This is not meager praise, since Bulgakov's book juggles a dizzying assortment of time frames, including the last days of Jesus, the subject of the Master's play. Maruti Evans's whitewashed set and fluorescent-dominated lighting are better at suggesting a corrupt world laid bare on a coroner's table than the shadows of eternal night. The climactic constellation of descending bells, which apparently toll for everyone, are less impressive than intended. But the cast, which includes a number of recent Bard graduates, seems to be having a heck of a time running wild through the audience and yelling their heads off. Mr. Howard, best known as a film actor and director, is physically intense and kind of goofy as the Master, who has been incarcerated in a mental institution. And Ms. Roth Haberle is even more fearless as Margarita, who becomes one of Satan's witches out of love for the Master, which means pushing walls around while wearing nothing but a cruelly transparent black gown. Yet a specific sense of characters never solidifies out of these whirlwind performances. Just so you know, though the production sometimes still seems to be set in the 1930s, its characters, especially the satanic retinue, make use of cellphones and skateboards. This would seem to imply, not very surprisingly, that although Stalin is long dead, his repressive spirit lives on in contemporary Russia. Despite the 21st-century props, though, I still felt that I had traveled back in time. Not to the Soviet Union of eight decades ago, but to progressive college theater productions of the late 1970s, when breaking the fourth wall seemed like a seriously and exhilaratingly radical proposition. The Master and Margarita Directed by Janos Szasz, adapted by Mr. Szasz and Gideon Lester from the novel by Mikhail Bulgakov; produced by Bob Bursey; movement by Doug Elkins; sets and lighting by Maruti Evans; costumes by Oana Botez; sound by Ien Denio; hair design by Jon Carter; stage manager, Taylor Adamik; assistant director, Rebecca Silbert; translation assistance by Andrea Tompa. Presented as part of the Bard SummerScape festival, Jean Donovan Fisher, chairwoman; at Theater Two, Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts at Bard College, 60 Manor Avenue, Annandale-on-Hudson, N.Y.; (845) 758-7900; fishercenter.bard.edu. Through Sunday. Running time: 2 hours 40 minutes. WITH: Ronald Guttman (Woland), Danny Wolohan (Azazello/Bosoi/Guard), Peter Macklin (Behemoth), Mickey Solis (Koroviev/Yeshua Ha-Nostri), Sonia Feigelson (Hella), Arliss Howard (the Master), Stephanie Roth Haberle (Margarita), Ean Sheehy (Ivan/Levi Matvei), Jeffrey Binder (Berlioz/Bengalsky), Michael Medeiros (Likhodeyev/Pontius Pilate), Hannah Mitchell (Mrs. Bosoi), Schuyler Helford (Nurse), Peter Benjamin Szasz (Boy), Alexander Setzko (Afranius),