In short, engaging scenes that take place before the murder, an image of model citizen Peter Egerman is created. He is caught in a web of social expectations, woven by his wife Katarina, his mother, his psychiatrist and his friends. In their testimonies after the murder, Bergman gauges the smallest vibrations hidden deeply within the layers of the human psyche like a seismograph. From the life of the marionettes is more than the investigation into the motives of an opportunity murderer. The play exposes the suffocating patterns in a society where success is too often regarded as a replacement for genuine tenderness and love.