In the closing years of the 17th century, an astronomer battles with a mute magician (Doctor Vysarius) for the attention of an impish boy-emperor. Having built a new, far-seeing telescope, he glimpses something in the heavens hurtling towards Earth – but, the machinations of the magician keep anyone from heeding his warnings. As the heavens tumble down, and visions of vivisected angels begin to populate his dreams, the astronomer struggles to wrest the court from the eerie power of Doctor Vysarius.

This play, written in our present age of grand illusion, points fearfully back toward another – the 17th century: a blazing world of waning monarchies, mystic charlatans, star-mad scientists, and growing existential unrest barely disguised by a taste for frenzied ornamentation. Taking distraction and fascination as its subject, the central question of the play is this: what if, when the Church censured Galileo for his long stargazing, they had been right to do so? What if there are such things in Heaven that, being seen, might stare back, might resist being made known? What, that is, are the dangers of an Enlightenment founded on the principle of obsession?