The premiere took place on April 24, 1993

“Guilty without guilt”
is put on by Pyotr Fomenko on the Small stage that used to be a crush bar. This
notice justifies itself during the play. Shmaga, the comedian, says his catch
line – “a proper place for an actor is a crush bar”. Fomenko settles Ostrovsky’s
melodrama that tells a story of a small town past-century theatre actors as a
love message to the theatre itself, with its tears and laughs, dirty tricks and
rectitude. In this play theatre speaks of what it knows best – its own self.
The rich landlord Dudukin defines an actor as “the fowl of the air”. These fowls live by the laws of drama, they
keep acting every minute and sometimes find it hard to sift out the stage from
the real life.