Events in the film take place during the Russian Civil War. In a small provincial town at first come to power the red, then the white and then the green. The protagonist is the self-taught theater director Vladimir Iskremas (a pseudonym, which is an abbreviation of "Iskusstvo — revoljucionnym massam" – "Art - for the revolutionary masses") stages the tragedy of Joan of Arc. He is obsessed with the ideas of theater and its transformation under the new revolutionary art.