An employee leaves the company, lured away by a “competing company”, but his boss doesn't want to let him go at all, not handing over the documents, instead of saying goodbye through the secretary, that he doesn’t want him to leave, and gives three months to say goodbye to them or not. Nevertheless, he leaves, while grossly violating party discipline. A new venture awaits him, there he will be a big boss, an “outsider.” They have high hopes for it, but they are in no hurry to immediately reveal all the features and hidden production problems.

Follows the service of Lieutenant Colonel Lubentsov as commandant of the German city of Lauterburg in the first days after the end of the Great Patriotic War.

The play is about the life of the Soviet intelligentsia in the 1930s. At the center of the performance is the talented surgeon Platon Krechet, a man whose every thought and effort is focused on prolonging human life.