Moscow at the end of the first decade of the 21st century is not a place many would equate with poetry. It surely was approximately 50 years ago when Igor Kvasha was beginning his career as an actor at the newly founded Sovremennik Theater. The era now known as the Thaw was underway and a throng of poets -- all young, some enthusiastic -- filled stadiums with fans craving to hear their latest verses. The heroes of the day were Robert Rozhdestvensky, Novella Matveyeva, Yevgeny Yevtushenko, Andrei Voznesensky, Bella Akhmadulina, Bulat Okudzhava and more.

This undoubtedly serves as something of a back story to the appearance of a show at the Sovremennik called "Would You Care to Take a Stroll, Arm in Arm?" Kvasha, as a means of celebrating his 75th birthday, put this small, unusual show together with a group of the theater's young actors. One could scratch one's head a long time before settling on a definition of its genre. It is more poetry recital than theater, but it is more theatrical than is usually associated with poetry readings. One thing is certain: it is almost impossible to imagine any of Moscow's hip, hot, hyped new directors ever coming up with something like this. This show -- this evening, whatever you want to call it -- cuts right across the grain of contemporary fashion and looks back to an era when poetry was king.

In the course of 90 minutes, nine actors step out on stage and perform, in whole or in part, 32 poetic works. In all, 30 poets are represented, stretching from the late 19th century (Arthur Rimbaud) to the present (Yelena Isayeva). The poets of the Thaw era are well represented -- Rimma Kazakova, Akhmadulina, Rozhdestvensky, Yevtushenko and others -- but the great poets of the early and late 20th century are not forgotten. Nikolai Gumilyov, Anna Akhmatova, Boris Pasternak and Joseph Brodsky are also part of the program. The dominant topic is love -- found, lost, imagined and remembered, although never recovered. The poems range from pieces I would describe as banal and sappy, to what the world understandably categorizes as great.

The first time I noticed greatness raising its head was in Artur Smolyaninov's performance of an excerpt from Vladimir Mayakovsky's poem, "A Cloud in Trousers." Here, suddenly, was something big enough, wild enough and perceptive enough to spill over its own boundaries.

Mama!
Your son is splendidly sick!
Mama!
His heart is on fire!

Smolyaninov performed this, and other works by Brodsky, Nikolai Panchenko and Eduard Bagritsky, with a sneer, a rock musician's swagger and something of a pirate's dagger concealed close to his hip. Smolyaninov doesn't play pretty love. He digs down into the grit and the chunks that splinter and fly when immovable objects collide. This was less about a man loving a woman -- although it surely was that, too -- than about a person in love running smack up against the granite cliff of reality. Splendidly sick, indeed! More like exploded into pieces. Or, as Mayakovsky wrote, "jettisoned like a naked whore from a burning brothel."

There is poetry that a performer elevates or brings to life through intonation, understanding and attitude. And there is poetry that challenges the performer to rise to its level. Mayakovsky does that, and Smolyaninov responds well.

Also sidestepping sentiment for substance was Yelena Plaksina, especially in Akhmatova's brief "Wide and Yellow is the Evening Light." Her hair pulled back severely, a stern gaze in her eyes and with no remorse in her heart, she delivered the poet's terse message of a woman admitting to a long-lost lover she may have been wrong. The actress' performance seemed to catch a message that Akhmatova left floating between the lines, as if she were saying, "But there's not much to be done about it now, is there?"

I can't help but wonder if Kvasha was quoting from an unexpected source in his creation of this show. The action, such as it is, takes place in a sort of brick-lined basement jazz club designed by Nikita Golovanov. This setting, especially when matched with the actors' tight-fitting black outfits, looks suspiciously like the scene in the 1957 Hollywood comedy, "Funny Face," when Audrey Hepburn cuts loose dancing to jazz in her now-famous "skinny black pants." In any case, at the Sovremennik a trio of piano, bass and drums backs up the readings with snippets of compositions by Alexei Chernyakov, Toots Thielemans, Dave Brubeck and Billy Strayhorn. A couple of times the poetry stops and the stage is turned over to the musicians, who do a fine job of showing there is poetry in jazz, too.

"Would You Care to Take a Stroll?" is a decidedly mixed bag. Although joined together in one short show, not all of these poets are equals. And that is putting it lightly. But poetry, like love and beauty, takes shape in the eye of the beholder. Kvasha put together a show that is unlike anything else running in Moscow today. And that, after all, is both an achievement and a recommendation.

"Would You Care to Take a Stroll, Arm in Arm?" (A Vam ne Khotitsya l pod Ruchku Proititsya?) plays July 26 at 7:30 p.m. on the Second Stage of the Sovremennik Theater, located at 19a Chistoprudny Bulvar. Metro Chistiye Prudy, Turgenevskaya. Tel. 628-7749. www.sovremennik.ru. Running time: 1 hour, 30 minutes.