The Cranes Are Flying

In 1957, Soviet viewers first saw the legendary film by Mikhail Kalatozov "The Cranes Are Flying", based on the play by Viktor Rozov "Forever Alive" (1943). The playwright himself wrote the script for the film, in which the main roles were played by Tatyana Samoilova and Aleksey Batalov. A year earlier, a young theater collective of graduates from the Moscow Art Theater School introduced a play based on this piece, soon gaining the famous name "Sovremennik". Rozov's plays were directed by such directors as Oleg Efremov and Anatoly Efros: during the "thaw" era, the uncompromising "Rozov boys" with restless hearts, true poets and Don Quixotes faithful to their ideals, emerged on the theater stage, rejecting all that is trivial... This edition presents five plays by Viktor Rozov. Their heroes take an exam before life itself: is it so easy, having gone through all trials, to not alter human dignity and to preserve nobility and kindness in one’s heart?