Gustave Flaubert's novel Madame Bovary was first published in 1856 and immediately had the effect of a bombshell. It was all about the plot and the way it was designed. The main character of the novel is Emma Bovary, the young wife of a village doctor. She tries to avoid the routine and emptiness of provincial life, longs for the ideal love she read about in books, and squanders her husband's fortune on her whims. While working on Madame Bovary, the writer chose a literary device unusual for his time - he completely abandoned value judgments, leaving the actions of the characters to the judgment of the readers, and covered the plot vulgarity with exquisite multi-layered linguistic constructions. Flaubert was even sued for insulting public morality, because in the 19th century in France there was a special law prohibiting the distribution of works that “cause irreparable damage to public or religious morals and human ethics.” 

In search of a way to stage the novel, director Andrei Prikotenko gave the village doctor Charles Bovary an opportunity to step out of the shadow of his wife Emma and shortened the name of the performance to a single last name - Bovary.

“To a certain extent, this is even natural,” says Andrei Prikotenko. – “Flaubert's novel begins with a long description of Charles's biography: childhood, school, medical college ... Emma appears only when we think that the novel is about Charles. The end of the story is also about him. Moreover, the finale is preceded by the plot of Charles' liberation from the laces of hellish petty-bourgeois vulgarity, his symbolic ascent. At Emma's funeral, he curses everyone, the whole world, God himself, and becomes almost an ancient hero, entering into a confrontation with forces that are impossible to win against.”