The play is set in an old-fashioned boardinghouse and relates the simple and happy lives of its residents. There are Blanche and Virgile, the owners, Marguerite and Horace, both in their late thirties and about to marry, and Johanne, a naive young girl in love with a wisecracking bum. Suddenly, a stranger appears, upsetting their lives. Now they all seem marked for the same fate.

« JOANNE : The first boy I loved with all my heart… He means nothing to me anymore… He's gone and I'm not the least sorry. / VINCENT : You still don't know much about love. Some day you'll know what it means to love with all your heart. »

« Le temps des lilas not only survived the test of time, it survived the test of my television-generation teenager. » Pat Donnelly, The Gazette, March 11, 1993.