The premiere held on 2013. 05. 10

Alexander Afinogenov haslived ashort life; he died duringthe Nazi airattackon Moscowin October 1941, he was thirty-seven yearsold.

His path indramawasnoteasy. His first successwas the play “The Faraway” (1935), where the publicistic genre andlyricismwith asubtle psychologism were combined.  Itwas successfully put on stage inthe Vakhtangov theater by the director M.Tolchanova.

1937 was a truly gloomy period in the life of A. Afinogenov; due to false charges, he was expelled from the party and his works were removed from the repertoire of the theatre. He was eventually acquitted and was able to return back to his creative work. The audience met again with the pure Afinogenov in the lyrical comedy “Mashen’ka” – the most intimate among all the Afinogenov plays. According to the author, he turned to “Mashen’ka” “due to a passionate desire to be around good people, heart warmth and true friendship”.

The history of relations ofprofessor Okaemovand hisgranddaughterMasha, goingthrougha difficult way of mutualunderstanding, is told by the authorin detail and very emotionally.In the character ofan old man-a scholar abstracted inscience, an all-sufficient man, wasinterestedthe People’s Artistof the USSR V.Etush, who has chosen thisstoryfor the anniversaryperformance. Vladimir Abramovich took this decision gradually.The search ofthe right materialwas long, butnot because ofa lackof good-qualitypieces; the actorcould not findtheanswers to thequestions that he isconcerned about these days. And in Afinogenov’s playhe sawa very importantmoral issue.

In today’sworld, overburden by information,progress and technology, a simplehuman communication vanishes. We wantedto tell howpeople find attention and support in the communication, how their hearts  get warmer andhowpriceless are tenderness, friendship, affection and love.RodionOvchinnikov, thedirector of the stage-verson has changed itsname into “Okayomovs’ Lifetime” wrote a musical compositionbased on Afinogenov’s play “Mashen’ka”, having left 6characters on selfish ends-a closer look ateach of them. Immersion into the depthsof human naturein the modern theateris rare. We mostly talkabout the problemsof humanity,running past theman.

Running time: 1 hours 50 min.

The play is recommended for audience older than 16 years (16 +).