Алла Соколова: Выпуск 2. Пьесы для небогатых театров

Participated in the poetical anthology «Late poets of St. Petersburg». Four plays from seven, written by Nosov were staged on «Radio Rassia».

The action of the comedy «Bags of time» takes place in a carriage, that stands in some dead-end siding. Four passengers try to believe, that their carriage will be sometimes couple to the train. Meanwhile everybody lost both sense of time and sense of reality long long ago.

Comedy with elements of the Theater of the Absurd.

The main character of this comedy is presented at the moment of suicide. The only thing left for him is to say good bye to life and to press the trigger. But it turns out to be most difficult. In the process of multiple attempts to deceive his own fear the main character meets his destiny in the person of an attractive girl. The play like a theorem proves that dramatic moments are just a prelude to the happy end.

Two main characters — a mother and a daughter — are waiting for a guest who did not inform them about the aim of his visit. But the daughter is ripe for marriage and the guest is a bachelor. And there is hope that…

The visitor is evidently at odds with good fortune and his visit is accompanied with circumstances, bringing the play to a stunning finale.

The collisions of this tragicomedy take place at the pedestrian crossing of a big avenue. After a long-time exile a poet Izvekov comes back here. He comes back to fulfill his ambitious plans of the past. Some time ago he had to escape poor and winded. But now he has the strength and has money enough to implement his noble charitable plans. Allthough during the time of his forced absence a lot has changed in his Motherland. Finding no place for himself in New Russia the Poet perishes.

Four snowfellows decide to live through to the next year. For this purpose they ought to turn into real humans. But they have no common opinion on what The Real Man is.

For the 1st Snowfellow The Real Man is the man, who goes to school and studies for a long time — three years in every class.

For the 2nd one The Real Man is an idler, absentee, quarrelsome fellow.

For the 3rd snowfellow The Real Man is a weakling, a sneak and a coward.

For the 4th snowfellow a «human» name was not found at all — nobody else appeared during the short time of their life in the school yard. So this snowfellow (a girl) was left with a strange name «Nowise». But it was just Nowise that became a Real Human Being and other snowfellows went melting one after another.

The genre of both plays is an anecdote.

These are the plays about love. The central issue is the classical triangle. Both of them can be performed by the same actors. But it's a very complicated task, because the characters are not only quite opposite in temper, but they belong to different social groups.

«The Suburb»: can it be that a husband doesn't understand the words of a stranger who seduces his wife.

And only this misunderstanding saves the family for him.

«All cats are gray»: can a looser and a poor man in forty minutes at a night railway station to take a beloved woman from a successful, clever and sophisticated rival?

And it is said: «Word is given to us to suffer». But a word can also oust a character, i.e. the bearer of this very word. The word causes the destruction of the personality of the main character in «Delusions» — Sharkovsky. This word destroyed Jerusalem in the play «Delusions» — the word and not the troops of Titus. This very word creates the theatrical time in the play. And thanks to this very word delusions turn into the only possibility for a man to get into contact with the outer world.

«First was the Word»… Everything after that belonged more or less to the «concluding remarks». In the play «Concluding Remarks» time apparently has gone crazy as if it got off the chain. Beginnings and ends, reasons and consequences got mixed up. May be the traditional mythology has also acquired a slightly different sinister image.

Life brings together the main characters of this play — a man and a woman, a prisoner and a warden — in a prison cell. They turn the cell into home for their love and love into prison for their souls.

Time of profound «democracy». Two elderly people meet at the corner of Vladimirskaya Square and Dostoevsky street — a favorite place for homeless, beggars and small street-traders. He is begging and she is selling something.

And here the story starts for the two — the story as old as the world itself and eternally new. The story of touching and tender love and, alas, of almost inevitable parting.