As they tour Sweden in a theatrical production of "Lysistrata", performing to often uncomprehending audiences, three women find their own lives and marriages mirrored in Aristophanes’s play. Soon, onstage drama, offstage reality, and surrealist fantasies begin to collide.
A group of women are workmates at a laundry. Rike is spreading a rumor about the manager Marta, a rumor that Marta is a lesbian and that she once tried to seduce Rike. This leads to an explosive situation at the workplace.
