Cat[ch] Fishes: or, the Trial of the King (Preface)

The rehearsal of this play was honoured with the presence of the Lord Daelyngridge, of the Daelyngridge Estate in ——shire, a man of distinguished understanding and fine taste. That elegant and industrious person will, I hope, pardon my brief explication of the exigence of tonight's performance, a tragicomedy of the deepest and most urgent significance to us, its players. The subject of the play 'tis hoped will be acceptable to all lovers of mankind, as it takes up the question of the ambition of man against his better nature, and indeed, too, against nature; as you shall see, 'tis not only with himself and his social station with which the central character must do battle, but against nature itself, as made manifest on the stage. For want of a fish, he must surmount those barriers placed before him and, through clever ingenuity, cooperation with his fellow man, and those tools which he has to hand.  It is with these great and terrible forces that Kenneth Pauley must contend, at the heart of the play, even more than those other great forces which trouble him, those forces which plague us all and guide the very paths of our lives: family, obligation, wealth, love. With an aim in sight that seems to be just out of grasp, he must make the choice to pursue his goal to the bitter end, irregardless of what obstacles stand before him. It is Kenneth's heroic and arduous attempt to triumph over that which stands in his way that occupies our minds. This play takes up the question that so many great works of drama, comedic and tragic alike, have taken up before it, to various effect: what is mankind's place in the world, and is he subject to fate, or may he, if he be so bold, reach out and seize his own path?    Scene Thieves by Tyler Crumrine: https://possible-worlds-games.itch.io/scene-thieves Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/unexploredcast Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/unexploredcast Follow us on Tumblr: https://unexploredcast.tumblr.com/ Music by Andrew: https://andrewperricone.bandcamp.com/