"Theater on Serpuhovka" February 19, presented the audience its new adventurous comedy in two acts with Nikolai Dobrynin and Lyudmila Artemieva in the lead roles. Director Alexei Kiryushchenko took as a basis the play of the French playwright Yves Jamiaka "Monsieur Amilcar, or the man who pays". The plot spins around the secured, educated dandy Monsieur Amilcar. According to the general ideas, he should only have enough. However, he is unhappy, so much that he is willing to pay for respect, recognition and even love. To experience all the joys of family life, he hires an unemployed actress Eleonora (Lyudmila Artemieva) for the role of wife and the young priestess of Virgini's love (Agnia Kuznetsova) as a daughter. He finds himself among ordinary passers-by and a "real friend" - Leon (Roman Madyanov). For the big money that he pays to each member of his newly-made family, he embodies the unrealized fantasies of a safe and quiet life with a tender wife, a loving daughter-student and a close only friend. He convinces himself that this home theater will be able to cure his soul, distorted by loneliness. However, Monsieur Amilcar encounters a sincere misunderstanding of how to behave with "husband for money", "not a free father" and "a friend for rent". He demands plausible deception, but at the same time, that wage workers do not cross the line of what is permitted - the professional should not become personal. He does not want attachments, he is interested only in naked calculation. "Why pay for something for which you will then have to pay dearly?" - exclaims the hero. All the action goes into a farce, interspersed with the despotism of Amilkar, the emotional breaks of each of the heroes. The comedy slowly degenerates into drama, with throbbing grief, disappointment and tragedy. But the actors continue to joke, exposing all the troubles of the modern world - disorder, undervaluation, unclaimedness, betrayal. In the second act, the emotional background changes. Here all the roles are already settled and equipped. Heroes get used to their situation and the circumstances surrounding them.

And, finally playing, they understand that for a long time already without finesse and falsity they live their lives: they really cry and laugh, they believe in each other, they love. The whole house of cards collapses after the household learns that Monsieur Amilcar is not a noble lord, but only a thief who stole money from a well-known firm. Everyone turns away from him. And he ends up suicide. True, opening his eyes kills, leaving the character alone with pain and conscience.