A man finds himself inexplicably backstage one day. When he is confronted by the stage manager, Meg, it becomes apparent that he is the understudy for an actor named Edwin (Edwin Booth) and as "Eddie" apparently broke both his legs, the man must perform in his stead. The man is referred to as "George" throughout the play, despite him feeling that it is not his real name (another actress refers to him as Stanley at one point as well) and cannot remember attending any rehearsals or being an actor at all (he instead believes that he is an accountant). To make matters worse, he is unable to get a straight answer as to what the play is. An actress named Sarah tells him that it is a Noel Coward play (Private Lives) and the other actress Ellen tells him that it is a Samuel Beckett play called Checkmate (which seems to have elements of the plays Endgame, Happy Days, and Waiting for Godot). Literally forced on stage, George attempts to improvise his lines; however, the play inconsistently shifts between scenes from Private Lives, Hamlet, Checkmate, and A Man for All Seasons. When forced to improvise a soliloquy in the Hamlet scene, George tells the audience that he was raised in a Catholic school and was interested in joining a monastery but they told him to wait until he was older. When he was older, however, he lost faith (as he put it "I don't know many Catholic adults"). In the final part of the play (A Man for all Seasons), George is alarmed to learn that he is to play the part of Sir Thomas Moore - and the execution seems a bit too real for his liking. While attempting to convince himself that he is merely in a dream, George ends up theorizing that one can't dream of his own death and therefore he will wake up just before he is beheaded. He accepts the execution, but appears to really be dead during curtain call, much to the cast's confusion.