The action takes place in the provincial city, in the house of the Prozorovs.

Irina, the youngest of the three Prozorov sisters, turns twenty years old. “It's sunny, fun in the yard,” and a table is set up in the hall, waiting for guests — officers of the artillery battery stationed in the city and its new commander, Lieutenant Colonel Vershinin. All are full of joyful expectations and hopes. Irina: “I don’t know why it’s so light in my soul ... Like I’m on a sail, above me is a wide blue sky and big white birds are flying around.” The Prozorovs are scheduled to move to Moscow in the fall. The sisters have no doubt that their brother Andrei will go to university and eventually become a professor. Kuligin, a gymnasium teacher, the husband of one of the sisters, Masha, is well-being. Chebutykin, a military doctor who once madly loved the late mother of the Prozorovs, lends himself to a general joyful mood. “My white bird,” he kisses Irina touchingly. Lieutenant Baron Tuzenbach enthusiastically speaks of the future: “The time has come [...] to prepare a healthy, strong storm, which [...] will blow off our society laziness, indifference, prejudice to work, rotten boredom." Vershinin is also optimistic. With his appearance, Masha undergoes her "merechlundia."Natasha’s appearance does not violate the atmosphere of laid-back cheerfulness, although she herself is terribly embarrassed by a large society. Andrey makes her an offer: “O youth, wonderful, wonderful youth! [...] I feel so good, my soul is full of love, delight ... My dear, good, pure, be my wife! ”

But already in the second act, major notes are replaced by minor notes. He finds no place for boredom Andrei. He, who dreamed of a professorship in Moscow, was not at all tempted by the post of secretary of the Zemstvo administration, and in the city he felt "alien and lonely." Masha finally becomes disillusioned with her husband, who once seemed to her “terribly learned, smart and important,” and among his fellow teachers she simply suffers. Irina is not satisfied with her work at the telegraph: “What I really wanted, what I dreamed about, is not in it. Work without poetry, without thoughts ... ”Tired, Olga returns from a gymnasium with a headache. Not in the spirit of Vershinin. He still continues to assure that “everything on earth should change little by little,” but then he adds: “And how I would like to prove to you that there is no happiness, it should not and will not be for us ... We should only work and to work ... ”Chebutykin’s puns, which he amuses others, burst into pain:“ No matter how you philosophize, loneliness is a terrible thing ... ”

Natasha, gradually tidying up the whole house, escorts guests waiting for the mummers. "Philistine!" - says Masha to Irina in her hearts.

Three years have passed. If the first action was played at noon, and it was “sunny, fun” in the courtyard, then the remarks for the third action “warn” about completely different - gloomy, sad - events: “Behind the scenes they sound the alarm bell on the occasion of a fire that has started a long time ago.A window is visible through the open door, red from the glow. ” Prozorov’s house is full of people fleeing the fire.

Irina sobs: “Where? Where did it all go? [...] but life is leaving and never will return, never, never we will leave for Moscow ... I am in despair, I am in despair! ” Masha thinks in alarm: “Somehow we will live our life, what of us will be?” Andrei cries: “When I got married, I thought that we would be happy ... everyone is happy ... But my God ...” Still, maybe Tusenbach is more disappointed: “What happy (three years ago. - V. B.) seemed to me a life! Where is she?" In the binge Chebutykin: “My head is empty, my soul is cold. Maybe I'm not a person, but only pretend that I have arms and legs ... and a head; maybe I do not exist at all, but it only seems to me that I walk, eat, sleep. (Crying.) " And the more persistently Kuligin repeats: “I am satisfied, I am satisfied, I am satisfied”, the more obvious it becomes, as everyone is broken, unhappy.

And finally, the last action. Autumn is coming. Masha, walking along the alley, looks up: “Migratory birds are already flying ...” The artillery brigade leaves the city: they transfer it to another place, either to Poland, or to Chita. Officers come to say goodbye to the Prozorovs. Fedotik, taking a photograph as a keepsake, remarks: "... silence and calmness will come in the city." Tuzenbach adds: "And the terrible boredom." Andrey speaks even more categorically: “The city will empty. They’ll cover him with a cap. ”

Masha parted with Vershinin, whom she so passionately fell in love with: “Unsuccessful life ... I don’t need anything now ...” Olga, becoming the head of the gymnasium, understands: “It means not to be in Moscow.”Irina decided - "if I am not destined to be in Moscow, then so be it" - to accept the offer of Tuzenbach, who resigned: "Baron and I will get married tomorrow, tomorrow we will leave for the brick one, and the day after tomorrow I am already at school, the new a life. [...] And my wings suddenly seemed to grow on my soul, I was amused, it became a lot easy and again I wanted to work, work ... ”Chebutykin in emotion:“ Fly, my dear, fly with God! ”

In his own way, he blesses Andrey in his own way: “You know, put on your hat, take a stick in your hands and leave ... leave and go, go without looking back. And the further you go, the better. ”

But not even the most modest hopes of the heroes of the play are destined to come true. Solyony, in love with Irina, provokes a quarrel with the baron and kills him in a duel. Broken Andrei lacks the strength to follow Chebutykin’s advice and pick up the “staff”: “Why, when we barely begin to live, we become boring, sulfur, uninteresting, lazy, indifferent, useless, unhappy ...”

The battery leaves the city. It sounds a military march. Olga: “Music plays so cheerfully, cheerfully, and I want to live! [...] and, it seems, a little more, and we will find out why we live, why we suffer ... If only we knew! (Music plays more and more quietly.) If only I knew, if only I knew! ” (A curtain.)

The heroes of the play are not free migratory birds, they are enclosed in a strong social “cage”, and the personal fate of everyone who has fallen into it is subject to the laws by which the whole country is living, experiencing universal ill-being. Not "who", but "what?" dominates man. This main culprit of misfortunes and setbacks in the play has several names - “vulgarity”, “baseness”,“Sinful life” ... The face of this “vulgarity” in Andrey’s thoughts looks especially visible and unsightly: “Our city has existed for two hundred years, it has one hundred thousand inhabitants, and not one that would not be like the others ... [...] They only eat , drink, sleep, then die ... others will be born, and they will also eat, drink, sleep and, in order not to stupor from boredom, diversify their lives with nasty gossip, vodka, cards, scumbagling ... "