Viktor Slavkin's CERCEAU

A contemporary Russian play, CERCEAU had its sold-out world premiere at Moscow's Taganka Theatre in 1985. Very Chekhovian in style, the play concerns itself with Rooster, a Moscow engineer who, on the occasion of his fortieth birthday, invites some friends and acquaintances for a weekend to the country dacha he has just inherited. Unknown to one another, his guests include a former lover, his boss, another friend, a young woman from his apartment building and a man whom he has recently just met on the street.

Unhappy with his lonely life, Rooster hopes that these people, each one alone, might come to live together under one roof, "...in the company of grown-up, unattached people." The weekend, however, turns out not as planned with the arrival of a surprise visitor and some ghosts from the past. A play in which each of the characters is attempting, in their own small way, to find a better life, CERCEAU offers the best of Russian theatre in both language and ideas.