National Theatre : Productions : Burnt by the Sun

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Burnt by the Sun

by Peter Flannery
from the screenplay by
Nikita Mikhalkov and Rustam Ibragimbekov

Colonel Kotov, decorated hero of the Russian Revolution, is spending an idyllic summer in the country with his beloved young wife and family. But on one glorious sunny morning in 1936, his wife’s former lover returns from a long and unexplained absence. Amidst a tangle of sexual jealousy, retribution and remorseless political backstabbing, Kotov feels the full, horrifying reach of Stalin’s rule.

I’ll give you one chance. Go now and type your confession. I take you and the confession to Moscow tonight – two big feathers in my cap – and maybe, maybe… they’ll spare Maroussia… as the wife of a traitor. We all have a choice, Comrade.

Poised at the beginning of Stalin’s Great Terror, Burnt by the Sun shows a brutal future encroaching on the last days of a fading world.