The Guild Theatre Presents Animals Out Of Paper
[Joseph] writes about really broken relationships, so people who are really broken, and how they manage to live in the world.
Javier Vilalta
With Animals Out of Paper, the latest offering from the Guild Theatre, audiences can expect a challenging, funny, clever play written by Rajiv Joseph, an American playwright who was shortlisted for a Pulitzer Prize for another work, Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo.
The Guild’s artistic director, Brian Fidler, as well as the production’s Calgary-based director, Javier Vilalta, both have high praise for Joseph’s plays, which generally feature flawed characters.
“[Joseph] writes about really broken relationships, so people who are really broken, and how they manage to live in the world,” Vilalta explains. “And that’s part of what really interests me about working on a play from this specific playwright, because he has a very specific style.”
In Animals Out of Paper, one of the broken people in question is Ilana, played by Camille Luks. Ilana is a reclusive professional origami artist whose life has fallen apart.
“She is divorced and very depressed,” Vilalta says of Ilana. “Her dog ran away. She has nobody. Everything that is bad that could happen to her, happened.”
Ilana’s self-imposed solitude is suddenly disrupted by two men.
“One is a very overly-positive man [Andy, played by Josh Schroeder] who is in charge of the Origami Association of America, and who is very interested in her work – he really admires her,” Vilalta says.
“And [the other man is] one of his high school students [Suresh, played by Harsh Dhawan] who is really into origami, but not very enthused. He’s from India, and he’s a genius, but for that matter he’s very hard to deal with.
“And so we have this very depressed person dealing with these two very different personalities, and how she deals with them at this part of her life is what the story is about, and how she grows out of her past with these two characters.”
Origami, Vilalta points out, is a metaphor for lives folding and unfolding. And like origami animals, Joseph builds characters who are [multi-]dimensional. For Vilalta, that is part of the play’s challenge, but also much of its appeal.
“We don’t have heroes and villains, we have real people. So they display very positive characteristics and very negative, back and forth, which is real life.
“It is strange to see in theatre because usually in theatre, you want to empathize with certain characters. And that is very comforting because we know how to identify who they are and what they’re made of,” he adds.
“It’s not that simple to create a good character that is three-dimensional because it’s tricky to see flaws for people. So that’s why I see it’s a great opportunity to feel with these characters, because they’re very well-written in a way that’s still very relatable without being annoying.”
Vilalta says that for the actors, playing such flawed but relatable characters is both rewarding and challenging.
“They are very, very committed to playing these very peculiar characters,” he says. “I think it’s also because [the characters] are so very different from who [the actors] are as people, so they find that it’s a very entertaining approach to acting when you play someone who’s completely opposite of you.”
Vilalta is equally impressed with the crew who, like the cast, are willing to take on whatever the play demands.
“Oh, they’re wonderful,” he says of the crew. “They’ve been so supportive and everyone’s so committed to the project, and to exploring, as well. You know, these kinds of plays are tricky. For example, in Calgary it’s hard to see this kind of play because it’s not as conventional. We get more commercial theatre.”
Vilalta suggests that Yukon audiences are ready for theatre that takes risks.
“They [the Guild] have obviously built an audience base who really are in for whatever journey they can be taken on, with an open mind and an open heart. And that’s the best kind of experience in my opinion.”
Fidler agrees with Vilalta’s assessment of Yukon audiences.
“I think we have a very sophisticated audience and that people want to be challenged,” Fidler observes. “And at its core, even though there are some challenging aspects, [this play] is really great storytelling and I think that’s what our audience craves – they want to be pulled into something.
“I’m sure that Javi mentioned that this playwright likes to explore flawed characters. And these are three flawed people, but they’re beautiful. They’re beautiful, sad, funny characters who you really care about.”
One of these flawed characters, Suresh, is from India, and Fidler was intentional in choosing a play that provides an exceptional role for an actor from the territory’s burgeoning Southeast Asian community.
On previous productions, The Guild has invited Katherine McCallum’s acting class from Yukon University to attend dress rehearsals.
“There’s quite a number of Southeast Asian folks who are in that acting class,” Fidler says. “I thought that [this play] is a really good opportunity to see if we can reach out to the Southeast Asian community and see if anyone is interested in being in a production and working with such excellent material.
“It took quite a few conversations because that’s such a hard-working community – a lot of people have two jobs and they’re just not able to take on something like this,” Fidler said. “But then eventually we found Harsh and he’s fantastic and we’re really happy to have him.
“So you know, [the production] is kind of a marriage of trying to reach out to a new community, and also presenting a really strong play with an excellent director.”
Like Fidler, Vilalta emphasizes the importance of having the territory’s Southeast Asian community represented in the production.
“The inclusion of a character with an Indian background is great. Just to see them on stage – that’s fantastic. Especially because I’ve heard that Whitehorse has such a big population that came from India, just to see them represented.”
And, because Joseph’s father is from India, the character has “authentic behaviour that is from that culture, perhaps because the playwright is, too.”
Vilalta is clearly impressed with the play, the cast, the crew, The Guild, and with Whitehorse as a whole. I asked him if he’d like to come back.
“Ah! I’d love to,” he says. “I’d love to do a musical,” naming Jesus Christ Superstar and The Rocky Horror Show as favourites.
“I need to plant that seed.”
Animals Out of Paper runs from November 27 to December 14.
