Oleg Menshikov gives a typically assured and stylish, if unchallenging, performance in "1900," the tale of a talented orphan pianist who lives his life on a ship.

There are no Russian actors more loved by their public than Oleg Menshikov. Whether he is acting in films, or in theater, or taking on the role of director, anything he does is greeted with a heavy swell of zealous adoration by armies of admirers. A reserved and meticulously proper person, at least on the surface, Menshikov appears to accept the attention with grace but without affection or gratitude. He is fiercely private and, foremost, he is an artist interested in pursuing his art as he sees fit.

Through his own production company, currently called the Oleg Menshikov Theatrical Association, the actor and director prepares a new show only once every few years. Each has been an event, debated heatedly in the theatrical press, covered sycophantically in glossy magazines and gushed over by the adoring public. It so happens that most of these shows have also been extremely high-quality fare, a couple ascending to the level of cutting-edge experimental theater. This was true of his productions of Alexei Burykin's "Nijinsky" (1993) and Maxim Kurochkin's "Kitchen" (2000). Productions of Alexander Griboyedov's "Woe from Wit" (1998) and Nikolai Gogol's "The Gamblers" (2002) were beautifully staged, superbly acted renditions of classic Russian comedies. Menshikov's latest show is "1900," a one-man version of Alessandro Baricco's monologue "Novecento," filmed in 1998 by Giuseppe Tornatore, with Tim Roth in the lead.

"1900" tells the story of an orphan child abandoned on board a trans-Atlantic ship in the early 20th century. The boy's extraordinary talent as a self-taught pianist and his curious fate of living his entire life at sea are related by a trumpet player who performed with him for several years in the ship's orchestra. The tale lurches as the narrator jumps from one story to another which he heard from others or witnessed himself. For him the boy is a legend whose life rises to the level of myth and metaphor.

The story is shot through with melancholy and nostalgia and, in musical terms, the show is performed in a minor key. Famous for his light, champagne sparkle, Menshikov inhabits the sadder tones with ease and conviction. His trumpet player gives himself over entirely to heartfelt empathy for a young man who never found a place for himself in the regular world but who created an extraordinary personal space in which to live and express himself. Menshikov also briefly takes on the personas of others who were important in the life of the boy piano prodigy to whom the ship's coal man gave the cantankerous name of Danny Boodman T.D. Lemon 1900.

"1900" takes on the texture of a show that is common in the West -- a slick showcase for a star -- but is much less at home on Russian soil. It is to Menshikov's credit that he is more than capable of keeping this kind of show running at a fairly brisk pace. For those who come to celebrate their love of Menshikov, "1900" provides plenty to keep them as happy as clams. However, for those who would like to see Menshikov stretch himself to fill out material that requires some genuine risk on his part -- this production is likely to underwhelm.

Curiously enough, in program notes Menshikov makes much of the fact that he has long wanted to do a one-man show expressly in order to appear before his audience without a net, so to speak. That is difficult for him, he writes with admirable candor, because he is so accustomed to "closing himself off." But in this show, which lists eight people as "creators" but is certainly directed primarily by the star himself, we mostly see a faceless narrator disappearing behind tales of people we never really come to know. Ironically, Baricco's story is a perfect vehicle for an actor who is inclined, in fact, to reveal very little.

One manner of producing this work could have been to couch it in a highly theatrical atmosphere, one through which a strong directorial vision might have opened up the series of hermetic stories that comprise it. For the most part, however, Menshikov left himself front and center -- sitting on a pylon or a stack of luggage, face-to-face with the audience, telling his story as if in intimate surroundings. On occasion a group of four silent sailors bring out cardboard cutouts of figures -- the ship's captain, the coal man who discovered the abandoned boy in a box, or a nosy woman who can't for the life of her figure out why the ship's pianist is named 1900. The death of the coal man during a storm is related as Menshikov leaps onto a rope ladder and hangs on for dear life as a huge sail behind him is whipped by the wind. But no matter how visually attractive such illustrative moments are, they do little to help us find our way beyond the surface of the story. Another alienating element is the fact that Menshikov's voice is broadcast through a microphone and amplifier. This may help him be heard over the live jazz orchestra playing at the back of the stage, but it often distorts his words, depriving them of intimacy and keeping us from making genuine human contact with this character.

One of the show's highlights is a scene during which the great ragtime pianist Jelly Roll Morton comes aboard ship to challenge 1900 to a duel. It begins with Morton setting his cigarette on the edge of the piano, playing a wild piece to perfection and then picking up his cigarette, from which the ashes still have not dropped. It ends as 1900 puts an unlighted cigarette on the edge of the piano and plays a piece so hot that by the time he is done, the cigarette has been lit. Menshikov plays the back-and-forth between the two egotistical pianists with verve and humor, adding in a few moments of something resembling the Charleston, which evokes thunderous applause from the actor's fans in the audience.

One assumes, however, that it is for the final monologue that Menshikov took on this play in the first place. Having refused to leave the ship for his entire life -- even when it was made into a hospital ship during World War II and when it was slated to be sunk as junk after the war ended -- the lonely pianist tells his old friend the trumpeter why he lived the life he did. He could make sense of a keyboard with 88 keys, he says, but when confronted with a whole city with millions of "keys" in the form of its inhabitants, he was horrified. He was endlessly free within the confines of his 88 keys, but would have perished instantly in the chaos of the modern world.

Menshikov delivers this speech of freedom in isolation with a deep sense of understanding. Had the rest of the show better prepared us for it, rather than merely loping gently from story to story, the impact might have been greater. As it is, Menshikov brings class and style to this tale about a talented loner.

"1900," a production of the Oleg Menshikov Theatrical Association and the Chereshnevy Les Open Festival of the Arts, plays June 19 and 20 at 7 p.m. at the Mossoviet Theater, located at 16 Bolshaya Sadovaya. Metro Mayakovskaya. Tel. 699-2035. Running time: 1 hour, 35 minutes.