In May 1903 she published "Bab", a five-act poetic drama based on the life of the founder of Bábism. It was performed on stage the following January at the St. Petersburg Literary-Artistic Society Theatre (now home to the Bolshoi Drama Theatre), directed by Evtikhii Karpov and produced by Aleksey Suvorin. The play was praised for its literary quality, most notably by Leo Tolstoy. A ban on its production in the city was nonetheless imposed by government censors after five performances. Still, the drama had successful runs in Astrakhan and Poltoratsk, and would return to the Petrograd stage post-February Revolution in April 1917. It would later be translated into German, French, and Tatar.