" Jocular, touching idyll which makes us laugh and at the same moment cry with sadness and affection… " - that's how A.S. Pushkin described N.V. Gogol's novella "The Old World Landowners".

"The Old-fashioned Love" performance was staged in the Saratov Kiselev Youth Theater more than 10 years ago, way back in the year of 1996 (director - Alexander Petrov from St.Petersburg, production designer - RF Meritorious Artist V. Firer), but it is still very popular among the audience. A classic performance that rises the eternal questions of life, love and death and Gogol's kind humor are constantly drawing attention of the teachers and students, making this performance to be one of the important lessons of spiritual development of young spectators.

N.V. Gogol, a great Russian writer, one of the fathers of Russian critical realism is relevant for theater art in the first place as the author of the famous play "The Inspector General". But Gogol is theatrical not only in his plays, his short stories and even famous novel "The Dead Souls" look natural on the stage due to bright fantasy of the author and always detailed episode working out.

"The Old-fashioned Landowners" is one of the most lyrical Gogol's stories, it’s an Mirgorod's idyll, a world full of calm and quiet slow happiness, a world beyond time itself. The plot is ascended to the Greek myth; it's a story that never could become old-fashioned. The scene in the story and in the performance is a remote estate of two nice "old-timers" - Afanasy Ivanovich and Pulkheria Ivanovna, they are a loving couple and assiduous hosts. They are not interested in the shocks of the "big world", there is no place for vanity in their house, it's a kingdom of the rich dinners, slow talks about estate and trivial issues, a kingdom of the touching love and quiet happiness they were able to preserve. That's why their life is so appealing to the audience, the whirl-pool of events could never touch their world, and it's frozen forever in the pleasant luxury of stagnation.

"The Old-fashioned Love" is a classic performance that, as her characters, could not accept modern scandal experiments, it's focused on the analyzing the inner world of the characters, as in the Gogol's story the plot is minimal. Constant success of the performance is based on the brilliant acting of the RF People's actors Yu. Osherov and S. Lavrentieva. The characters they created are full of the inner warmth, sincerity and deep truth of life and if you watched the performance once you can never imagine other Afanasy Ivanovich and Pulkheria Ivanovna. And the title of the performance is intentionally different from Gogol's, first of all the performance is about love. Our performance is about love, which people managed to carry throughout their whole lives, quiet and peaceful life, lightsome and calm…
Actors:

The Narrator	Emelyanov Valery Nikolayevich
Pulkheria Ivanovna	Osherova (Lavrentieva) Svetlana Vasilievna
Afanasy Ivanovich	Osherov Yury Petrovich
The Young Lady	Beskrovnaya Anastasiya Sergeevna Fedorova (Kutina) Olga Valentinovna
The Young Man	Volodarskiy Ilya Borisovich Shchedrin Anton Yurievich
Children-Guisers	Panteleeva Nina Fedorovna Loginova (Lisenko) Olga Dmitrievna