Between strains of rap music and scenes introduced by projected geometric figures on hanging boards, three lives come together like folds of paper into origami. What kind of structures result? How do the lives change? What happens to the relationships of the people to the art and to each other?
Because Rajiv Joseph creatively chose the origami metaphor, his ideas for the play may be credited by many critics with more originality and quality than deserved. (In general, he's supposed to be "hot" right now.) But even a sensitive director like Jim Wise can't solve Joseph's foremost problem: his protagonist.
A famous origami artist, Ilana's been lolling around her studio-turned-residence since her divorce. Her only outside contact: Chinese food delivery. Losing the three-legged dog who saved her from a deadly fire prolongs her funk over her artistic block. For the first time she's realizing "things can just vanish" from one's life. (Foreshadowing by the playwright?) From the get-go, Ilana makes us aware of her pain, pain, pain. But is it undeserved enough to win our sympathy? We know little of the kind of person she's been, though it's dropped later that her ex went unacknowledged for his professional aid. Hardly admirable are her interactions with the man and boy who enter her life, and neither the writer nor actress Barbara Sloan give the admitted "not a people person" warmth or relief from constant self-interest.
Andy, a high-school math teacher with a longtime crush on Ilana, uses his connection with an origami association to get to her. As rendered with gusto by Christopher Swan, Andy comes off not as a stalker (though he screamingly animates a huge origami hawk) but one generous and easily involved. He always counts his blessings -- literally, having jotted down over 7000 of them in a book. An attempt to capture happiness? In an otherwise not very happy existence?
Andy persuades Ilana to help his brilliant math student and rapper Suresh (Luke Bartholomew, serious and beyond bling) meet a graduation requirement. His initial blunt, sexy, disrespectful talk may be an attempt to hide home troubles, for in quite a different voice he copes by cell phone with demands of his incompetent family. Having begun origami as a respite, Luke mastered the art instinctively. After she's read without permission what amounts to Andy's autobiography, seemingly for her amusement, why does Ilana lead him on? How can she be unaware of the hurt she causes by inordinate attention to Suresh? Ilana keenly knows of and disdains the differences between Suresh and herself. He creates art and solves problems instinctively, without processes he can explain but with neatly organized materials and atmosphere. She analyzes and plans before getting to work and must be surrounded by the matter, designs, prototypes, etc. (that is, a mess) that will lead to a product. Is she getting competitive? The newly entwined lives begin to unravel when Ilana, invited as an expert to an origami conference in Nagasaki, takes Suresh along to exhibit his art. Like paper that's been folded and thus changed and scarred, so does what happens in Japan affect the relationships. After a betrayal by Ilana, there aren't many blessings to be counted in Andy's future, though origami won't cease to be a refuge for her. Do we care about her? Or more about the others? Or about none of them? Joseph's play calls for superior technical resources, and The Banyan staff supplies them. With cardboard-like furnishings, floor coverings, and walls of Ilana's studio, Jeffrey W. Dean's design seems to deliver the play in plain brown wrappings. His Japanese hotel bedroom with a painted headboard of traditional dragons is also on the mark both realistically and symbolically.
Lighting and sound play as important a part between scenes as illuminating them. Dee Richards goes all out costuming Suresh with multi-colored scrolls on caps, neon-bright pieced jackets and hoods over pure-toned tees, and black athletic shoes with colored bottoms. He's like walking graffiti until he appears tailored and more mature in Japan. The others' outfits are appropriate for everyday as well as out-to-dinner attractive. What a great job Annette Breazeale has done as prop mistress, especially corralling all the animals and other objects out of paper that fill the stage.
