“Animals Out of Paper” is a terrific new play by Rajiv Joseph that is being presented through Sunday at the Second Stage Theatre’s small uptown space (at 76th and Broadway).
Although I have been busily working to be ready to take off for a vacation next week, when two theater friends told me in separate e-mails that I had to see Joseph’s play, I squeezed it in on Saturday between a movie and another play (!)
And, boy, am I glad I heeded their advice.
“Animals Out of Paper” combines an unusual backdrop — the world of origami artists — with three of the best-written and best-acted characters I’ve seen in a New York theater recently.
The subject matter might sound off-putting to some people — who cares about paper folding? — but Joseph uses origami in a manner slightly akin to the role mathematics played in the Pulitzer Prize-winning drama “Proof.”
The three very different people we meet in “Animals” — Ilana (Kellie Overbey, right), Andy (Jeremy Shamos) and Suresh (Utkarsh Ambudkar) — are brought together by their interest in origami, but the play quickly shifts to their surprising and very moving relationships.
Ilana is a renowned origami artist (and writer) who is depressed and hunkered down in her very messy apartment when the lights go up. Soon, Andy is knocking on her door saying he has important American Origami Association papers to deliver. She reluctantly lets him in, and we are off on a gripping personal journey.
Andy turns out to be a teacher — as well as a student of origami — and he introduces Ilana to star pupil Suresh who seems to have a natural talent for incredibly complex folded paper art objects.
Andy is a lonely man with a crush on Ilana and Suresh covers the pain of his mother’s recent car accident death with rather profane, rap music-inspired behavior. Ilana goes from being unhappily isolated (in the aftermath of a failed marriage) to forging two new and very intimate relationships.
The scenes in the play feel so real — and we grow to care so much for these three people — that we can’t wait to see what is going to happen next (even when we fear we won’t like what is going to happen).
The theater was full Saturday afternoon and the audience was obviously thrilled by what they saw, but “Animals Out of Paper” cannot have its present run extended because Second Stage has to vacate the theater for another production. While I’m sure a piece this strong will turn up again in New York — or in one of our regional theaters — if I were you, I would try to catch it during the next five days with these three brilliant actors.
(To order tickets for “Animals Out of Paper” call 212-246-4422 or go online to www.2st.com. As of this afternoon, some tickets were still available for weekend performances.)
