A. Ostrovsky «The Bondmaid»

Alexander Ostrovsky’s comedy «The Bondmaids» remains relevant in any era.

The plot is simple: Yevdokim Styrov is not young, but wealthy, is married to the young Yevlalia, who was given to him in marriage as soon as she finished a girls’ boarding school.

A rich but ageing husband, and beside him a wife in the prime of her youth, yearning for love and suffering because of it. Wealth and lack of freedom stand in contrast to the right to love. A person is free to choose love or lovelessness, but what are the motives behind such a choice?

The comedy touches upon remarkably modern themes: love and money, honesty and mistrust, freedom and captivity. How does one preserve fidelity and distinguish love from infatuation? The unpredictable nature of a woman’s emotions can lead anywhere.

The performance ironically mocks absurd stereotypes of human relationships, revealing the deepest and most essential feelings, those that the characters may have replaced with something else.