By night, Vivian Parry performs the role of Manhattan's sharpest theatre critic, immersing herself fully in every show she sees. By day, she uses work, sex, and psychotropic drugs to keep her comfortably numb. Desperate for a promotion and at the urging of her editor, she agrees to an interview with David Adler, an enigmatic graduate student.

When he later disappears, Vivian soon learns from his devastated fiancée that she was the last person to have seen him alive. The police refuse to investigate his disappearance and Vivian finds herself obsessed with what happened, assuming the role of amateur investigator. But as she gets closer to the truth about David Adler, she finds that the boundaries between theatre and reality are more tenuous than even she could have believed.