Robert Ardrey's play (1908-80) Shadow of Heroes (1958) is a documentary drama of the Hungarian revolt of 1956 and of the major events leading up to it. A character, simply called the Author, somewhat in the manner of the Stage Director in Thornton Wilder's Our Town, narrates the action at transitional moments.

The play opens in 1944, when Laszlo Rajk and his wife, Julia, leaders of the anti-Nazi Hungarian resistance, are captured, interrogated, tortured, and sent on a death march to Belsen concentration camp just as the war comes to an end. Act 2 takes place in 1949. Rajk, now the minister of the interior in the postwar Hungarian Communist government, falls out with his colleagues over his refusal to accept the luxurious living quarters that other high-ranking government officials are enjoying, making the rest of them look bad as a result. He finally consents because his wife has just given birth to a new baby. Nevertheless, as Act 2 ends, he is arrested, as is his wife a few days after. Act 3 takes place six weeks later. All attempts to force Rajk to sign a false confession have failed. Janos Kadar, Rajk's trusted friend and successor as minister of the interior, visits him in his jail cell and convinces him that he will be allowed to live with his wife and child in the Soviet Union if he signs a false confession. Rajk agrees and shortly after his trial is hanged. In Act 4, Kadar visits Julia, recently released from prison, and confesses that he betrayed Rajk for the good of the party. When the news of Khrushchev's denunciation of Stalin at the 20th Congress reaches Hungary, the government decides to rehabilitate the memory of Rajk. Julia insists that he be given a public state funeral.

Despite the government's efforts not to publicize the funeral, 250,000 people attend, triggering the events that culminate in the uprising. Julia is warned by friends that she will be targeted in the Soviet reaction, but the temporary success of the new Nagy government blinds her to the coming Soviet oppression. When Kadar becomes the new premier, replacing Nagy, Julia takes refuge in the Yugoslav embassy. Kadar's promise of amnesty, his final treachery, convinces her, Nagy, and the other refugees to leave the embassy, whereupon they are all arrested. As the play ends, the Author announces that Julia is still a prisoner of the Russians.

Shadow of Heroes had its premiere in London in 1958. Critics praised the play and its outstanding cast, which included Dame Peggy Ashcroft as Julia, but such realistic drama was not popular with theatergoers. Later productions in Germany and New York had similar disappointments at the box office, leading author Robert Ardrey to conclude that there was no longer an audience for plays that engage the political and social issues of their times. Nevertheless Ardrey was able to take pride in one of the play's achievements: "On October 18, 1958, eleven days after the [London] opening, Radio Budapest announced that Mrs. Rajk had been released from prison and had returned with her son to Budapest."

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