Overview

In 1973, this play jolted Moscow audiences with its frank discussion of individuals' past moral compromises. Four ex-schoolmates, three of their wives, and their old schoolteacher gather for a mountaintop reunion. The four grew up and went to war together, but have grown apart in the last twenty years. Now they're respectible members of Soviet society. A fifth schoolmate - Sabeur, a poet - refused to come as he'd been denounced by one of the others during the war. Even now none of them will admit responsibility. The old friends try to understand and confront the truths of their past, and in a surprise ending find they're faced with moral problems in the present as well.