Russian Plays for Young Audiences

by Miriam Morton

Anthology of five plays. 416 pp, illustrated. Paperbound. $ 9.95

The five plays in this sampling represent the extraordinary diversity and vitality of playwriting for young people in Russia today. Each by a different leading contemporary playwright, each in a different genre, together they reflect the tradition of high standards of craftsmanship and professionalism which Russian theatres devote to their "Young Spectators."

The plays, written for young people from 7 to 18, cover a wider age span than is usual in this country's children's theatres. Young adults of high school and college age will be particularly interested in reading, as well as performing, The Young Graduates, Victor Rozov's comedy about the college admissions rat race, and The Young Guard, Anatoly Aleksin's moving memorial to a real group of young people who stood up against Fascists in World War II. Other plays represented in this first English-language collection of Russian children's plays are Lev Ustinov's The City Without Love, Gennadi Mamlin's Hey There--Hello!, and Evgeny Schwartz' The Two Maples.

Taken as a whole, Miriam Morton has made a creative and informed selection of representative Russian writers, and publisher Pat Whitton of New Plays Books has done our own theatre for young audiences a great service in putting these ambitious full-length plays before us.
Joyce Doolittle
The Canadian Theatre Review