It premiered at the Moscow Maly Theatre on 6 November 1880 (as a benefit for Mikhail Sadovsky who played Rabachev) and first appeared in print in 1881, in Ogonyok magazines (issues 6-10), as the Ostrovsky and Solovyov's joint work.

[1] In May 1880 Nikolai Solovyov approached Ostrovsky with the idea of writing a play together and suggested they should take as a basis his newly written piece called Broken Happiness (Разбитое счастье).

After the success of [The Marriage of] Belugin and The Wild One we have to put all our energy into this single work," Ostrovsky wrote him later this month, referring to the two plays they had recently co-authored and saw being staged.

Ostrovsky has made numerous cuts and additions to this final draft, dealing mostly with the characters' language, to make it more laconic and expressive.

[1] Beautiful but worn-out Renyova arrives to her estate from Paris and amuses herself with trying to seduce Rabachev, her young, good-looking neighbour, thus ruining both his life and that of Olya, the girl he loves and was about to marry oo..[1] Light Without Heat was premiered in Moscow's Maly Theatre on 6 November [O.S.

Also performing were Nadezhda Nikulina (Renyova), Maria Yermolova (Olya), Olga Sadovskaya (Zaleshina), Vladimir Maksheyev (Zaleshin) and Nikolai Muzil (Khudobayev).

On 14 November Light Without Heat was performed at the Alexandrinsky Theatre in Saint Petersburg, as a benefit for Burdin who played Khudobayev.

Among other actors involved were Antonina Abarinova (Renyova), Maria Savina (Olya), Nikolai Sazonov (Rabachev), Vladimir Davydov (Deryugin) and Alexander Nilsky (Zaleshin).