SOURCE: Caulfield, Carl. “Moscow Gold and Reassessing History.” Modern Drama 36, no. 4 (December 1993): 490-98.

In the following essay, Caulfied analyzes the role of history in Moscow Gold.

The Revolution has shifted the theatre of our critical operations. We must review our tactics.¹

Moscow Gold is Howard Brenton and Tariq Ali's second theatrical collaboration, after their satirical, metaphorical response in 1989 to the Rushdie affair in Iranian Nights. Moscow Gold dramatizes what its authors see as a need for a reassessment of Soviet history and Communist ideologies, but the play can also be seen as revealing a state of crisis in Howard Brenton's overview of world history and his earlier views on historical progression. Prior to the collapse of the Communist regimes in Eastern Europe, Brenton believed that Western Europe was on the verge of a political renaissance, an inevitable historical movement towards a more “communistic” society. As he stated in...