When Sergei Tretyakov’s ground-breaking play, I Want a Baby, was banned by Stalin’s censor in 1927, it was a signal that the radical and innovative theatre of the early Soviet years was to be brought to an end. A glittering, unblinking exploration of the realities of post-revolutionary Soviet life, I Want a Baby marks a high point in modernist experimental drama.

Tretyakov’s plays are notable for their formal originality and their revolutionary content. The World Upside Down, which was ...