SYNOPSES
Oleg Ernev
AN EVENING WITH A PRETTY AND LONELY WOMAN
A comedy
Many families split up for just one reason: one person is unable to apologise to the other. It is impossible to say: I was wrong, I cannot live without you! Our heroes arrive at this stage through play-acting a scenario they invent for themselves. By becoming "someone else", turning themselves into strangers, they are able to find themselves and to understand that their love for each other is undying.
1 male role
2 female roles
THE WALRUS HOUR
a joke
A river. A bridge over the river. On the bridge is a lonely angler. Is he fishing? Of course. But not only for fish. He has a strange and unexpected profession: he helps people in despair to regain their faith in life. And the way he goes about it is paradoxical - he escalates a situation which appears to be tragic so that it becomes absurd and comical. And a man who, twenty minutes ago, made up his mind to put an end to his life, ends up throwing himself into the river to save another despairing soul.
3 male roles
Andrei Zinchuk
THE STORY OF A SMALL LOVE
A comedy
Three short one-act comedies, connected together by a theme which is subtle and at the same time plausible, otherwise known as life.
In the first of these ("Before the start of the show") we encounter the characters' youth. In the second one ("Occurrence in a swimming pool"), we encounter their mature selves. One might assume that the third concluding part of this love story shows us their old age, but this isn't the case: in the comedy "When I was grown up" we see the carefree days of childhood. The comedies can be performed together or separately.
1 male role
2 female roles
One of the female roles is for a starring actress.
Igor Shprits
THREE SONGS ABOUT THE MOTHERLAND
Three one-act comedies, connected by the same characters.
The first song, "A Clear Head", is ths story of a poet who, to mark the poet Esenin's centenary, is awarded the Esenin prize. Everything would be fine, except that in the rules of the competition there is one "but" - the future prize-winner is locked up in a room in the Hotel Angleterre, along with a commemorative stool and a commemorative noose.
"The hands of a master" is a song about a metal-worker who one Monday morning very much wanted to take a hair of the dog, get a bite to eat and fall in love with all the women in his section at work. In spite of all the obstacles he fulfils his plans with honour.
And the last song - "The cherry-coloured backside" is a detective story. A bank has been robbed. The security guard who chases after the robbers manages, with a firm hand, to tear the trousers off one of the gang members.
The sole piece of evidence is that he has a cherry-coloured backside. So the song is called "The cherry-coloured backside". In the finale we see the triumph of the science of criminology.
4 male roles
2 female roles
Leonid Voron
MASKS AND A DRUM
In Leonid Voron's comedy "Masks and a drum" the forms of the classic commedia del arte are used to suggest real political events which excite our world today. If the square of a small Italian town where the action takes place can be equated with Europe, then it is not difficult, in that case, to imagine who Brigella, who wishes to line up all the characters in the play in an obedient phalanx of soldiers, is meant to be. As an opponent to Brigella we have the rascally, but inspired Figaro. In his monologues he sings the praises of love, life and freedom. He summons us to fight for... Exactly what for is something everyone can decide for himself. There is no doubt that Leonid Voron's play is in code, as if hidden by the merry commedia del arte setting. All you need to do is find the key.
6 male roles
2 female roles
Liudmila Razumovskaia
FRENCH PASSION IN A DACHA NEAR MOSCOW
A comedy
In the dacha, near Moscow, belonging to the wholly admirable doctor Sergei Ivanovich, his relatives and lady friends gather together: Lilia (his former lover) with her daughter Lara (his current lover, something her mother, of course, has no idea of), then Zoia, his legal wife, with her lover Jean, who has appeared unexpectedly on the scene.
Their affair began on the plane from Paris to Moscow and now, in spite of the fact that Zoia is old enough to be Jean's mother, she passionately wishes to marry him, to which end she dreams of divorcing Sergei Ivanovich and, most of all, of selling the house and using the proceeds to start a new life in Paris.
The house which Lilia has been dreaming of all her life is, to everyone's surprise, bought by her husband, the would-be New Russian Leonid Borisovich, whom she is on the point of divorcing because of his unusual jealousy. Passions run high once it is revealed that Jean is in fact not Jean after all and not a Frenchman, but a Russian who had an affair with Lara in his student days, and who now needs to repay his debts in a hurry, or else...
The play contains many reversals and unexpected turns, and "ten poods of love". It begins as a light, elegant comedy in a lyrical-ironic "Chekhovian" style, then turns to farce and vaudeville, and ends like everything does in Russia - unpredictably and tragically.
3 male roles
3 female roles
Vadim Shmelev
ROSES IN THE BATH-TUB or WHAT ARE YOU GETTING UP TO HERE?
A comedy in two acts
A young and lonely female teacher decides to use a festive occasion to seriously bewilder a new colleague who is coming to visit. The tactic she plans is unorthodox: the hostess awaits her shy guest, seated in a bath full of water which is standing in the middle of the room (the building work has overrun!). The hostess is appropriately "dressed". The guest, of course, is shocked by this tactic, but the bold, uninhibited lady lays him on the bed by the end of the first act.
If Natal'ia is in the bath in Act One, in Act Two her place is taken by Aleksandr. And then Inna, the next-door neighbour dives in, thinking that it's easier for mermaids to catch a man. An endless stream of people call at the flat, each time encountering some kind of risque situation: Natal'ia's former husband, who bought her the flat and expects gratitude for this; Aleksandr's pupil Vova, worried by the fact that a girl in his class, Sveta, is in love with the teacher; Sveta herself, who kisses the half-naked teacher goodbye and nobly surrenders him to Natal'ia; even Vova's mother, the noisy neighbour from downstairs, who turns up to see the goings-on!
By the end everyone has more or less sorted themselves out. Vova's hopes are revived, Natal'ia's ex-husband takes Inna home with him. Things are more complicated for the main characters: Aleksandr, excited by his "erotic adventure", nevertheless believes that his affair with Natal'ia was PLANNED.
Why, you may ask, was all this cocktail of events necessary? To let a normal, pleasant woman realise her natural need to be WEAK and NOT TO BE CALCULATING.
3 male roles
4 female roles