Marya - BBC Play Of The Month - 1979

Russia 1920: the aftermath of the Revolution. Civil war rages fiercely. Racketeers feed off the chaos. Old Tsarist families try to come to terms with the new order. Compassionate, satirical, explosive. Marya is the work of Isaac Babel, the brilliant Russian short story writer. A Jew from Odessa, Babel served with the Red cavalry during the revolutionary years. He was a victim of the Stalinist purges, and his savagely true play has yet to receive a performance in Russia.