Fifty-year-old Vladimir Ivanovich Prokhorov, relieved of his worldly possessions, takes a journey back in time. Accompanied by a traveling companion barely half his age, he revisits the people and places of his youth and witnesses the dark forces that shaped the 20th century.

Gorky's play raises themes of the Russian intelligentsia's struggles and search for the meaning of life. The characters argue a lot, quarrel, tease each other, trying to change, if not their lives, then at least their outlook on it.