Shadow Play - Recap

Defendant Adam Grant sits in a courtroom as the jury finds him guilty of murder in the first degree. The judge orders Adam to rise and hear his sentence: execution at midnight. Adam starts laughing hysterically, insisting that he can’t take dying again. He lunges at the judge but the bailiffs pull him away as he screams that if he dies, everyone else will die as well.



Back in his cell, Adam can’t take listening to another cellmate, Coley, constantly playing his harmonica. He says that Coley isn’t real and Adam created him based on a prison movie. Another prisoner, Jiggs, notes that Adam has to avoid snapping like another prisoner, Phillips, who is singing quietly to himself. Adam still doesn’t believe the prison is real but perfectly describes how he will be executed, as if he’s lived it dozens of times before.



District Attorney Hank Ritchie is preparing to enjoy a steak supper with his wife Carol when a drunk Paul Carson, a newspaper editor, pays a visit. Carson starts talking about Adam’s case and Carol storms out of the room. Carson admits that he’s scared that Adam is actually telling the truth, and that Ritchie needs to talk to Adam before he’s executed.



In his cell, Adam asks Jiggs what time it is, noting that the district attorney always visits about this time. Ritchie arrives right on time and Adam explains that while the district attorney always visits this time of the night, it’s not always Ritchie. Ritchie is skeptical, but is disconcerted when Adam mouths exactly what he says, as he says it. Adam explains that the entire world is his dream, and if he dies then he wakes up and all the dream characters will disappear. He’s been tried and sentenced and executed on the same day, which would never happen in real life. Ritchie insists he has his own life, but Adam explains that they’re all part of his dream, with their own personalities and memories. When Ritchie wonders why Adam is so concerned since he can just wake up, Adam explains that he keeps having the same dream every night… and he wakes up screaming as he’s put to death. He can’t take it any more and promises Ritchie to dream about something else if he’ll only get he execution called off. Ritchie prepares to leave but Adam says he knows that Ritchie is having a steak dinner and it will be a pot roast when he gets home.



Ritchie returns home where Carson is waiting for him. The DA goes to the oven… and finds that the steak from earlier has transformed into a pot roast.

In his cell, Adam points out to Jiggs how unrealistic the whole thing is, but since he’s never been in a prison the whole dream is based on his imagination of what a prison and an execution would be like. With fifteen minutes to go, Father Beaman arrives for the last rites and Adam finally recognizes him as a priest he knows in his real life. The warden arrives and leads Adam to the execution chamber where he’ll be electrocuted.

With only a few minutes left, Carson persuades Ritchie that if nothing else, Adam must be insane since he believes his story and is so convincing. Ritchie calls the governor to ask for a stay of execution and succeeds, but the governor calls just as Adam is executed. Everything winks out…



…and Adam is back in the courtroom, listening to the jury find him guilty. This time Carson is the jury foreman, Jiggs is the judge, and Beaman is the DA. Everything proceeds exactly the same as before…



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