“Let my suffering satiate the malice of my enemies. But let their cruelty never exceed the measure of my charity. Banish from me all thoughts of revenge, that I may not lose the reward, nor thou the glory of my patience.”

Young, white haired Isaac Newton has scrawled this on Catherine Stole’s wall; a wall that is tucked away in the attic, all but forgotten. To Isaac, everyone is an enemy, save for Catherine and God Himself. Even Robert Hooke, the only man who can help him into the Royal Society, may be out to get him. There is nothing more that Isaac wants than to secure a place in the Royal Society, leave his rural England behind, and be commissioned to study what he loves: light. But before he can do that, before he can marry Catherine, the only woman who loves him, before he can escape England, a hell filled with crude farmers and countless sheep, before he can publish his work, of which he has only a single copy, he must convince Hooke that he has, in fact, stuck a needle into his eye to prove his theory on light.

Isaac’s Eye, Lucas Hnath’s darkly comical play, is full of ether. That is, it is full of things that don’t exist. The premise is simple: if it is written on the gray-green chalkboard situated before you, then it is true. For example, it is stated that, as a child, Newton threatened to burn down his parents’ house. As outrageous as it seems, it is written across the board in white chalk reminiscent of grade school. Throughout the show, various diagrams, facts, and bits of information are not only written on the chalkboard, but also on the walls and on the beaten structures about the room; at the same time bringing the intimate setting alive and irrevocably drawing the audience in. The props and the set itself are minimal, and rightly so. Anything more than a few pieces of furniture would take away from the performance. Haskell King’s Newton is irresistible in a maddening, endearing way, and Michael Louis Serafin-Wells’s Hooke is so incredibly deplorable that the audience absolutely has to love him. Kristen Bush’s Catherine is strong, independent, and holds her own in this small cast.

Isaac’s Eye will run at the Ensemble Studio Theatre until Sunday, February 24, and I absolutely recommend that you see it before it’s gone. Go to ensemblestudiotheatre.org for more details.