Once again, Carolina Performing Arts makes good on its habit of showcasing phenomenal performances by presenting “The Andersen Project” as part of its International Theater Festival.

Inspired by the works of Hans Christian Andersen – the man responsible for such tales as “The Little Mermaid” and “Thumbelina” – famed Canadian theater artist Robert Lepage delves into the intricacies that helped mold the stories of the historic Danish writer.

The show was executed flawlessly by French-Canadian actor Yves Jacques and the rest of Ex Machina, Lepage’s theatre group. And while the performance only featured Jacques on stage, the story was definitely not confined to a single entity.

What stands out from the beginning is the elaborate, yet mysterious theater-like frame that rested near the back of the stage. Essentially a large television that lacked a glass screen, it is from this open window that the story makes its way to the viewers.

The play opens with an address to the patrons of a Parisian opera house by Frederic Lapointe, the first main character of the show. Though he defines the audience he is speaking to as being in Paris, Lapointe gives the sense as if he’s speaking beyond his setting and directly to the viewer.

In this opening, Lapointe insincerely apologizes for the lack of an actual opera due to the riots that have mounted from work-strikes in Paris, but offers to tell a different tale in place of the show.

Smoothly, the show turns to opening credits as Rashid, a Moroccan graffiti artist goes to work on the walls as names flash upon the backdrop of the screenless frame.

In the opening scene, Lapointe meets Rashid, whose paying job is to run a peep show in a red-light district in Paris. Though two characters are communicating, Jacques does the speaking for both. As if you were watching someone have a conversation on the phone, where though you only here one side of the dialogue, you can still follow the entire discussion.

It is in this scene we find that Lapointe, a songwriter from Quebec, is being commissioned by an opera house in Paris to create an opera titled ‘The Andersen Project,’ which is intended to be an opera dedicated to a child audience. He is currently staying in a friend’s apartment above the peep show where he will also be watching over his friends pet dog, Fanny.

The next scene introduces the second main character, Arnaud, the administrator of the opera commissioning Lapointe. It is here we meet him as he lays out all the details for Lepointe and the project he’ll be undertaking.

Interestingly, the performance can be easily categorized as a show within a show as it follows the development of ‘The Andersen Project.’ Through the night, we follow mainly Arnaud and Lepointe from different angles as they work the opera and begin to uncover secrets about themselves through the works of Andersen.

Two stories by Andersen, ‘The Dryad’ and ‘The Shadow,’ are directly intertwined with the script to root the concepts of the play to Andersen in analogous fashion

Through the play, we see the all sides of these characters – the pleasant, passionate, and the ugly. We learn that Lapointe is struggling having recently come out of a long relationship, trying to find validation in Paris. All the while the brazen Arnaud tries to keep his sexual frustrations from derailing his life. .

Jacques even plays the part of Andersen near midway of the performance, bringing in a more concrete representation of the author who made numerous travels to various major European cities in efforts to quell his own demons and seek his own validation.

As Jacques stated after the performance, everyone harbors each of these elements that range from light to dark. For this reason, all characters are condensed into one to show this diversity within self.

The show was amazingly vivid, as if the stage was playing tricks on the eyes of the viewer— granted, they were to enhance the performance as opposed to fooling the viewer.

With the use of a conveyor type flooring, the scenes fluidly moved between one another as the story jumped from the peep house in Paris to a train in Canada and back to the theater in Paris.

A highly integral part of the story is when the audience sees Arnaud show his compassionate side while telling his daughter “The Shadow” at bed-time. It is here were Lepage alludes to the larger scheme of the story.

After being asked about the moral of the story by his daughter, Arnaud simply says “I don’t know,” but attempts to define it by claiming that it’s probably about how if you let your shadows dominate your life, they will destroy you.

The play does err on the long side, but it doesn’t ever feel taxing to watch and is simply a marvel of a performance.

All aspects of the show play well into Lepage’s overarching structure of this well-paced adventure that forces the audience to question social ideals and the notion of identity. Simply put, it is complex — like Andersen himself.

Four and a half out of five stars.