This play is one of the repertory plays of Russian theater – in the first year of production (1878) it was on the stage of seventy provincial theaters. The main interest of the audience was the triangular relationship conceived according to the plot as the basis of a dramatic intrigue.
The girl Frosya Burlakova comes to Moscow from the remote Siberian village of Eltsovka to become a singer. She stops at the sculptor Nikolai Vasilyevich, who studied at a school in Zaporozhye, where their mutual friend worked — a school caretaker, who then moved to Siberia. Completely unfamiliar with the life of big cities, Frosya amuses Nikolai Vasilyevich himself, his girlfriend Natasha and the housekeeper with his provinciality and spontaneity. However, the absolute sincerity and spiritual purity of Frosy make the sculptor think that he himself has long been stuck in lies, vanity and commercial work, exchanged his artistic talent for trifles and lost his creative path.
