Award-winning Kiwi actor performs new show about death and afterlife

Jacob Rajan and Indian Ink Theatre Company are bringing their new performance Paradise or the Impermanence of Ice Cream to Hamilton. Photo / Supplied

Internationally recognised Kiwi actor Jacob Rajan is playing the solo performance Paradise or the Impermanence of Ice Cream at Hamilton's Meteor Theatre.

Running from today July 7 until July 11, the show is inspired by Ernest Becker's Pulitzer prize-winning work Denial of Death and follows the story of a man desperately trying to avoid death.

The protagonist is flung between limbo and his past where a rebellious young woman from Mumbai's enigmatic Parsi community holds the key that may deliver him to paradise.

The performance is presented by one of New Zealand's most successful theatrical exports: Indian Ink Theatre Company. Channelling seven characters, the story weaves the afterlife and a dash of Bollywood disco into the real-life mystery of India's vanishing vultures.

True to the Indian Ink style, Paradise is rife with mischief, intelligence, exquisite puppetry, inspired sound design and comic originality.

Co-founder of Indian Ink and actor Jacob says he and founder of Indian Ink Justin Lewis were inspired by Mumbai its people and its secrets, in particular, the mystery of India's vanishing vultures.

"The fastest mass extinction of all time and we'd never heard about it, it pricked our curiosity. We originally started writing about Mumbai, vultures, and immortality but discovered we were actually writing about impermanence. It's a word that resonates with the strange times we're living in," Jacob says.

People will know Jacob from Indian Ink's first play Krishnan's Dairy, where he won the Fringe First Award in Edinburgh in1997 or from on-screen productions like Outrageous Fortune and Shortland Street.

Originally earning a degree in microbiology before completing a primary school teaching diploma, Jacob threw himself into the arts. As an actor, he studied at Toi Whakaari, and has been working in theatre since graduating in 1994. In 2013, he was made a Member of the NZ Order of Merit.