The date: January 5, 1895. The place: the St. James Theater in London's West End. Tonight, brilliant novelist Henry James hopes to change his life with the opening of his new venture: a play, into which he has poured his vulnerable heart. In tragic-comic scenes that evoke his love and terror of the theatre, he stalls and hallucinates before attending the ill-fated premiere of his famously disastrous play "Guy Domville." Meanwhile, deep in his imagination, a parallel short story, "Nona Vincent," unfolds. In it, a young, hopeful and impoverished playwright, Wayworth, is about to have his first, very commercial, play produced. He is drawn into a triangle with his elegant patron, Mrs. Alsager, and his young leading lady, Violet Grey. With increasing speed, these two stories, one real and one imaginary, drive toward their very different confrontations with destiny.