The time “Jonah,” currently running at Roundabout Theatre Company’s Laura Pels Theatre, takes place is described in the program as “The past and the present. But everything is slippery.” ‘Slippery’ is the operative word here. Everything is slippery in “Jonah” in addition to the time: the series of bedrooms in Wilson Chin’s cerebral and surreal design; the changeability and moodiness Amith Chandrashaker’s translucent lighting design; the characters (‘real” and imagined); and the play’s ever-changing mood. All of this is ‘slippery’: the characters slip down several rabbit holes before emerging into a redemptive reality.

At the play’s beginning, Jonah (a charming and sprite-like Hagan Oliveras) washes up just outside Ana’s (a broken and vulnerable Gabby Beans) boarding school dorm room insisting on escorting her to the student center. He then escorts Ana to her dorm room “because there’s bobcats around here. Did you know that? And rattlesnakes.” In a lengthy exchange there, Jonah and Ana share stories about their parents, their childhood, their fears, their sexual fantasies, and their feelings about one another. In this opening scene, Jonah appears more like a savior than the jinx his biblical name suggests. He repeatedly professes his affection for Ana who eventually accepts his feelings for her and begins slowly to reciprocate.

In the following scene, Ana’s stepbrother Danny (a creepy and dysfunctional Samuel H. Levine) appears on and off with Jonah. As the script suggests, “The setting there could feel only half-realized, half-imagined, a little fuzzy, still taking shape or coming into view.” It is not clear when Danny’s visits are in the present or in a variety of pasts with Ana. However, it is during these visits that we discover the realities of Ana’s life from early childhood to the present. It would take a succession of spoiler alerts to say more about Danny’s visits except to say they are unsettling, menacing, and often disturbing. The action takes place in a variety of settings and time periods throughout Anna’s life.

In the final scene which feels more like the present than the other scenes, Steven (a charming and convincing John Zdrojeski) shows up in Ana’s bedroom “at a remote writers’ residency somewhere in the woods.” Much like Jonah, Steven interjects himself into Ana’s life aggressively. At this point, Ana is an adult, Danny has committed suicide, and Jonah seems a distant memory. Steven and Ana’s exchanges parallel those earlier exchanges between Jonah and Ana. And it is at this point that playwright Rachel Bond’s well written script reaches its climax.

Steven falls asleep at the foot of Ana’s bed after he pulls up the blankets around her. Jonah appears to Ana in her sleep in what is clearly a dream/fantasy. As Steven wakes, Jonah disappears, and Steven and Ana eventually touch one another and kiss. But just before this, Ana makes a confession that clarifies who Jonah is: Jonah was the anchoring fantasy that saved Ana throughout her life: “When I was young, I had these elaborate—elaborate—I had a whole other fully-lived life in my head . . . my mom was still alive. And I had two sisters. I was the baby. All girls. And…I went to this boarding school?— somewhere in the—way far away, in the mountains somewhere, with this very overbearing dorm-parent. And I met this—boy, this funny, strange boy. Who was sad and so vulnerable. Kind. And I trusted him, like I really—. Truly trusted him. And touching was like—electricity. It was powerful.”

At the play’s end the real Steven replaced the fantasy Jonah in Ana’s life and touching Steven, Steven touching her is like electricity. It is powerful. It is redemption. Kudos to the four actors whose performances make this transition from fantasy to redemptive reality authentic and believable. Although “Jonah” unfolds slowly, the journey from beginning to end is worth the adventure.