The ideologist and ambitious son of a miner, John Gabriel Borkman, breaks the romantic bond he had with Ella Rentheim, marries her sister Gunhild, and together they have a son, Erhart. He becomes a bank director, is marked by financial misconduct, and is sentenced to prison for several years. When he returns home, he has to face the coldness of his wife, the criticism of his daughter-in-law, and the indifference of his son.

The play is based on the well-known Ibsenian love triangle. Its dramatic climaxes, underground humor, and universal truths spoken by the characters have made "John Gabriel Borkman" a beloved work among Europeans in the early 20th century, reaching our modern times as both disruptive and sensitive. Borkman is the last aristocrat who wants to fix the world. He is the man of good intentions and noble motives who is suffocated by the technocratic perception of the world. It is a reality of the 20th century that expresses the struggle for a quality of life and ethics, and the dawn of another quality and another ethics.