In Mayakovsky Theatre's new production of Ostrovsky's "The Forest", Raisa Pavlovna Gurmyzhskaya, a widow in her early fifties, and her friend the housekeeper Ulita are at last played not by 70- or 80-year-old grannies but by young, vivid women, Anna Ardov

In Mayakovsky Theatre's new production of Ostrovsky's "The Forest", Raisa Pavlovna Gurmyzhskaya, a widow in her early fifties, and her friend the housekeeper Ulita are at last played not by 70- or 80-year-old grannies but by young, vivid women, Anna Ardova and Darya Poverennova, which on the whole turns the customary perception of the play to a new side. Ulita's romantic sentiments do not look comic, and Gurmyzhskaya's sudden passion does not seem so very strange.

The production has a rather unusual set design: the entire action unfolds on a stage flooded with water, which quite literally makes the old play sound new.

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In Mayakovsky Theatre's new production of Ostrovsky's "The Forest", Raisa Pavlovna Gurmyzhskaya, a widow in her early fifties, and her friend the housekeeper Ulita are at last played not by 70- or 80-year-old grannies but by young, vivid women, Anna Ardov

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September digest: archaeological finds, exhibitions, museums, theatre and the Church

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