Director Aditee Biswas, through the play, Animals out of Paper, brings forth a parallel between the art of origami and the lives of intriguingly imperfect characters. By Team Viva
What do you get when you have a touching tale full of emotional twists, which brings forth genuine humanity, wittiness, clumsy romance with a touch of humour? Animals Out of Paper, based on an original play penned by Pulitzer-nominated playwright Rajiv Joseph, promises all this and more.
It was after Joseph went to a show in New York, which was based on origami, that he got an opportunity of conversing with a couple of specialists in that art. Astonished by the Japanese artwork, he realised that it also worked as a soothing therapy for the artists to work on it. This inspired him to write a play that could feature and look at origami closely.
The strength of the play appears to be its sound storyline which features Geeta Sudan, Vivek Mansukhani and Sriharsh Sharma in the lead roles. The plot spins around the lives of three individuals and it exhibits how they influence each others’ lives. The story revolves around origami artist Nina, who had recently got divorced, lost her dog and is stuck in her life circumstances. The one, who hasn’t answered her phone calls in over two months, opens her art studio to an unpredictable school teacher Andy, who introduces her to his teen student Suresh. The characters start to form and reshape each others’ lives while simultaneously overlapping their origami art.
The play portrays how rapidly emotions transition from positive to negative, how heartaches shift perspectives, how failure changes the outlook of diverse people on their lives. As director Aditee Biswas adapts the play and recreates it as her new direction, she says that the most important thing to make the storyline stand out is to compose it in a simple manner.
She says, “The audience must be able to relate with the characters since it is about day-to-day life chaos and emotions. Nina’s story has everything to make one laugh, learn and imagine how deeply entrenched the impact of some emotions is. The dialogues and the ease of every act attract the people’s mind.”
She says that the trio of Nina, Andy and his student Suresh have encountered a lot of hardships in their life. “The play makes us question our tolerance towards loved ones when their dark side surfaces,” she adds.
Categorising the play as a comedy with a dash of drama, she says, “It has connotations of angst and melancholy. While love and longing are the overriding emotions, it delves deep into how grief transforms us.”
Aditee believes in giving new talents a chance. She says that she always considers new actors in her projects. “We have preserved the original script but our characters are based in India, speaking regular English instead of using the American style,” says the director.
(Produced by Scene Stealers, the play will be staged on June 8 and 9 at the Stein Auditorium, Indian Habitat Centre, at 7.30 pm.)