A Cabinet of Curiosities - The New York Times Though his silhouette is hardly that of a sylph, the old man at the center of "The Hatmaker's Wife," a shaggy new comedy by Lauren Yee, doesn't seem to be made of solid flesh. As portrayed by the hardy New York stage veteran David Margulies, Hetchman the hatmaker might have been drawn into existence in looping pen-and-ink swirls, perhaps by the cartoonist William Steig. When Hetchman's wife and his best friend are reduced to making loonlike noises to describe the look of his head without its customary fedora, you understand why words fail them. You can even see why they worry that someday Hetchman might just float away into the ether. Mr. Margulies's expertly imagined Hetchman belongs to the parallel universe of folklore, where people are not lifelike, but bigger, stranger and realer than life. That's the landscape inhabited by "The Hatmaker's Wife," a Playwrights Realm production directed by Rachel Chavkin, which opened on Thursday night at the Peter Jay Sharp Theater. Whether you'll enjoy your stay there will partly depend on your tolerance for winsome fables for adults. Ms. Yee's homespun fantasy about two generations of love, or the lack thereof, in a New York suburb has the feeling of one of those slim allegorical volumes that can be purchased near the greeting card sections of bookstores and wind up in grown-ups" Christmas stockings. This means that its logic is, by conventional standards, highly suspicious, while its whimsy quotient is high enough to clog arteries. But Ms. Yee - a rising young dramatist whose earlier works include "Ching Chong Chinaman" - brings a courageous, childlike conviction to her fey land of make-believe. She is also blessed with a director, the adventurous Ms. Chavkin ("Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812"), and performers who can, at least on occasion, make you suspend both disbelief and (if you're allergic to preciousness) distaste. Now that you are forewarned, I feel that it's safe to break the news that the character with whom you are meant to identify here is named Voice. Played with merciful matter-of-factness by Stephanie Wright Thompson, Voice is a copy editor at the tail end of youth who moves into a rented house outside New York City with her boyfriend, Gabe (Frank Harts). While Gabe loves Voice, she isn't at all sure that she loves him, or whether she's even capable of love. Fortunately, she has come to the right place to explore her ambivalence. This old house (designed by Carolyn Mraz with a shabby verisimilitude that allows for glimpses of heaven) has walls that talk. Or rather, a Wall (Megan Byrne), which sounds like a Yiddishe mama and has quite a tale to tell about the previous inhabitants it has known. That story is delivered partly by pages that the Wall sheds and that Voice picks up and reads aloud, summoning into being the curmudgeonly Hetchman, the lonely Hetchman's Wife (Marcia Jean Kurtz) and their perhaps too helpful next door neighbor, Meckel (Peter Friedman). While Voice and Gabe hail from the formulaic world of contemporary urban rom-coms, the Hetchmans and Meckel conjure that of Isaac Bashevis Singer, and they're a lot more fun to hang out with. This is true even when their conversation involves subjects like "the music of the hat" and the "floatiness" of a person, which is a symptom that he or she needs a hug. Mr. Friedman brings unblushing good will and vivacity to assignments that include walking around with a clothespin on his nose (because Hetchman stinks). And Ms. Kurtz is charmingly brusque and rumpled as the wife who walks out on Hetchman after years of being ignored, taking his favorite hat with her as a hostage. She is a worthy mate to Mr. Margulies's Hetchman, which is saying something. With his big-baby's visage, which suggests Albert Einstein crossed with Winston Churchill, and his aura of contented selfishness, Mr. Margulies has created what may be the best human cartoon character of the year. His Hetchman is so authoritatively, if improbably, present, that you always accept him on his own terms. There aren't many actors whom I could watch playfully feeding Cheetos to a golem (also Mr. Harts), or unscrewing a Mason jar filled with luminous pink wisps of memory, without wincing. But Mr. Margulies makes such activities feel as ordinary as watching television, which Hetchman does a lot. Ms. Yee has winningly made his favorite show a documentary about life on earth after the extinction of people. All but glued before the set to his favorite threadbare chair, Hetchman looks to be the living, rasping definition of sedentary. All the more remarkable, then, that Mr. Margulies's performance, in a play that is heavy with cuteness, feels like pure levitation. The Hatmaker's Wife By Lauren Yee; directed by Rachel Chavkin; producing director, Renee Blinkwolt; sets by Carolyn Mraz; costumes by Michael Krass; lighting by Amith Chandrashaker; music and sound by Ryan Rumery; production supervisor, James Cleveland/Production Core; production stage manager, Lori Amondson. Presented by the Playwrights Realm, Katherine Kovner, artistic director. At the Peter Jay Sharp Theater, 416 West 42nd Street, Clinton; (212) 279-4200, ticketcentral.com. WITH: Megan Byrne (Wall), Peter Friedman (Meckel), Frank Harts (Gabe/Golem), Marcia Jean Kurtz (Hetchman's Wife), David Margulies (Hetchman) and Stephanie Wright Thompson (Voice, a Young Woman).