IMPLICIT in its name is the hope that New Beginnings will foster

future collaborative links between the Soviet Union and ourselves -- and

who could wish for a more encouraging, or rewarding, instance of what

can be achieved jointly than this British premiere of Cinzano with its

Scottish cast and Russian direction.

Written by Ludmilla Petrushevskaya and translated into lively,

colloquial Glaswegian by Stephen Mulrine, the play looks at a subject

painfully full of home truths for Russians and Scots alike: drunkenness.

In a bleak, bare flat -- stepladders, a piano, some empty bottles and

that's it -- three young Muscovites get bevvied out their skulls . . .

First they get ceremonially convivial, then they get

falling-over-silly, then they get seriously drunk and, tongues loosened

by rapid litres of vermouth, they each let slip dismal facts about their

daily lives, about the shortages of everything from money to housing to

a normal family life to self-esteem. ''We drink because we like it, not

because of circumstance,'' says the swankiest of the three, Valya, in a

moment of defiant self-deception. But they drink because they are

already drowning in sorrows and only when drunk can they admit this,

share it.

The play charts the shifting stages of their inebriation with comedy

that is accurate, perceptive but above all compassionate -- there are no

moral judgments made on these men, rather a feeling that these desperate

randans are their way of valiantly coping with a demoralising lifestyle.

Roman Kozak, of the Moscow Chelovyek Studio, directs three Scots

actors -- Forbes Masson, Peter Mullan and Paul Samson -- in a

heart-warming and absorbing production that deftly infiltrates that

particular Russian style of humour, full of visual jokes and with a

circus feel to the gaiety, into the natural comic talents of the cast.

And, individually and as a team, they really show exceptional talents in

making believable the behaviour extremes that overtake their characters

as they guzzle booze and fall from graceful friendship into vicious

brawling.

One has to toast the way in which the actors have responded to a style

so different to that of our own theatre, the result is a marvellous

evening's theatre, entertaining and thought-provoking on so many levels,

not least that of showing us what can be achieved by joining forces with

creative artists from other cultures. Cinzano reaches parts other

theatre doesn't -- let's all drink to that.