About the work
Comedy in five acts by Alexander Nikolayevich Ostrovsky, written in 1871 and first performed on 1 November 1871 at the Alexandrinsky Theatre in St Petersburg. With more than 5,000 performances by 1917, it ranks among the playwright's most frequently staged works.
Plot
The wealthy landowner Gurmyzhskaya wants to marry off her penniless ward Aksinya against her will to the impoverished Bulanov so that she herself can carry on undisturbed with a younger lover. Her supposed nephew Neschastlivtsev, in truth a penniless travelling actor, sees through the scheme and uses his own savings to help Aksinya marry the son of a timber merchant, before exposing Gurmyzhskaya's hypocrisy in front of the assembled household.
Cultural significance
Ostrovsky sets two penniless actors up as the moral authority against a calculating landed gentry, inverting the usual social hierarchy in a device that turns the play into a tribute to his own profession. It is regarded as one of Ostrovsky's most complex works in Russian theatre history and did not receive its British stage premiere until 1981.