Aging actress Irina Arkadina pays summer visits to her brother Pjotr Nikolayevich Sorin and her son Konstantin on a country estate. On one occasion, she brings along Boris Trigorin, a successful novelist. Nina, a free and innocent girl on a neighboring estate, falls in love with Trigorin. As he lightly consumes and rejects her, so the actress consumed and rejected her son all his life. The victims are destroyed while the sophisticates continue on their way.