Shadow Play (1961 The Twilight Zone episode)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| “Shadow Play” | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Twilight Zone episode | |||||||
 Dennis Weaver in "Shadow Play" |
|||||||
| Episode no. | Season 2 Episode 62 |
||||||
| Written by | Charles Beaumont | ||||||
| Directed by | John Brahm | ||||||
| Guest stars | Dennis Weaver Harry Townes Wright King Bernie Hamilton |
||||||
| Production no. | 173-3657 | ||||||
| Original airdate | May 5, 1961 | ||||||
|
|||||||
| List of Twilight Zone episodes | |||||||
"Shadow Play" is an episode of the American television anthology series The Twilight Zone.
Contents |
[edit] Opening narration
| “ | Adam Grant, a nondescript kind of man found guilty of murder and sentenced to the electric chair. Like every other criminal caught in the wheels of justice he's scared, right down to the marrow of his bones. But it isn't prison that scares him, the long, silent nights of waiting, the slow walk to the little room, or even death itself. It's something else that holds Adam Grant in the hot, sweaty grip of fear, something worse than any punishment this world has to offer, something found only in the Twilight Zone. | ” |
[edit] Synopsis
A man convicted of murder, Adam Grant (Weaver), tries to convince those about to execute him that it’s all just a recurring nightmare of his. He claims the warden and the lawyers are all people he has known in his waking life now playing the parts in a dream. They ask why he cares about dying if it's all a dream. He explains that he can't get a decent night's sleep because he always wakes up screaming. A stay of execution arrives too late, as we see the lights dim, presumably from the electric chair being activated. We discover he was correct, the world was a dream for them, and a nightmare, for him, as everything begins to vanish and the world turns to black. The opening scene recurs as he's sentenced to death for murder again, albeit with the same people in different roles (e.g. a fellow inmate is now the judge at the trial).
[edit] Closing narration
| “ | We know that a dream can be real, but who ever thought that reality could be a dream? We exist, of course, but how, in what way? As we believe, as flesh-and-blood human beings, or are we simply parts of someone's feverish, complicated nightmare? Think about it and then ask yourself, do you live here, in this country, in this world, or do you live instead in the Twilight Zone? | ” |
