Woman is on deliver table and sneezes a baby out

Rational, exacting, and self-controlled theater director, Henrik Vogler, often stays after rehearsal to think and plan. On this day, Anna comes back, ostensibly looking for a bracelet. She is the lead in his new production of Strindberg's A Dream Play. She talks of her hatred for her mother, now dead, an alcoholic actress, who was Vogler's star and lover.

First-year acting student Stanley mines his girlfriend's family scandal as material for the end-of-year show at drama school. The result is a moral minefield.