Months before the horrific fire that destroyed the Walt Theater on opening night in the summer of 1908, the chain reaction that led to the disaster was already in motion.

Henry Bartolet, the construction manager on the project, is desperate to save his crumbling marriage. Thinking his wife's discontent stems from his struggles to provide for their family, he will stop at nothing to ensure the project is a success - or risk losing his job and his family if he fails.

His wife, Annie, is caught in the grip of postpartum melancholia, and unable to communicate her struggles without feeling she has failed as a woman. She buries her pain in denial and laudanum and believes Henry is the one pushing her away.

When Henry's cousin Daniel comes to stay with them for the summer, tensions reach a boiling point. A dark-haired playboy with a distaste for work, he soon develops an intimate kinship with lonely Annie - but the secrets from his past threaten to unveil the dark truth Henry has been hiding, and tear their marriage apart.

Inspired by the tragic events of the Boyertown Opera House Fire and the Chicago Iroquois Theater Fire, The Persistence of Vision examines how even the most inconsequential moments can have far-reaching ramifications, and what the hope of redemption can drive a man to do.