Meet Arthur and Maurice, two down-and-out actors who want nothing more than to find the perfect roles. Arthur is thin and verbose--a apssionate man who literally lives to die, hoping one day to perform a death scene worthy of international reknown. Maurice is stout, impulsive and given to occasional excesses, but as devoted to Arthur as he is to acting career. Always pretending to be who they are not, an attempt to finagle free pastries with a grand performance ultimately ends in a confrontation between the duo and their least favorite actor in the world: the phenomenally successful and thoroughly nauseating thespian Jeremy Burtom. Wrongly accused of physically abusing the over-wrought and under-talented Burtom in a bar, Arthur and Maurice find themselves pursued not by big-time directors but by the law.