THE STORY: As commented on by Harold Clurman: “…there is no politics in this comedy…the main characters in FIVE EVENINGS are no longer youthful. They fell in love on the eve of the war; the war separated them. After the war they lost sight of one another, though not their memories or their longings for each other. When they meet again seventeen years later they are past the age of 'romance'…All the characters in FIVE EVENINGS are sweet people even when they are youthfully foolish or momentarily misguided…All are learning and teaching…Thus they constantly seem to express themselves in apothegms and proverbs…At the final curtain when the lovers have dispelled their misunderstanding, Tamara looks forward to a good life and simply says, 'Oh, if only we don’t have a war!'"
A classic of the modern Russian theatre, this humorous drama reveals an aspect of Soviet life that was often obscured in official propaganda—its concern with elemental, human values.
