The stage is sparse. It contains a chair, a table with two glasses of water, and an enigmatic ladder. The room is intimate, just 85 audience members and one actor who enters and opens a sealed envelope. Helen Cassidy has never seen the script she is about to perform. There is a new actor each night – each performance is a cold read. It helps that Helen is an excellent reader and is clearly enjoying discovering the words of a man from Iran, bringing him into the room.
This script is a conversation between the writer, 29-year-old Iranian playwright Nassim Soleimanpour, the actor who brings his words to life, and the audience. Telling stories and parables, making us laugh and sharing facts about his life, Soleimanpour admits, via the actor performing his words, this is ‘not so much a play as an experiment’.
The play was a clever way for the playwright to send a piece of himself out into the world. When it was written, he was forbidden to leave Iran, ineligible for a passport as he had refused the mandatory military service required by his country.
Soleimanpour has recently been granted a passport and took part in Q&A and panel sessions at Brisbane’s World Theatre Festival where the White Rabbit, Red Rabbit is being performed. Before this, his play toured the world without him, with audience members reaching out to him online to share their thoughts on this unique experience.
The audience is integral. They are not only witness to the events; they are part of the experiment. They form part of a rambling and often disjointed conversation which cleverly illustrates life in Iran.
We are caught up in the drama, learning about Soleimanpour, catching a glimpse of life in his country. From his point of view in 2010, the writer directs our thoughts and actions, and at times our emotions.
Mid-performance on the second night of the season, a man in the audience asks if he can say something. It’s clear from the actor’s hesitation that this is not in the script. He takes the stage. He tells us we are the first audience to be addressed in person by the writer we’ve been befriending for the last half-hour.
Soleimanpour explains that the previous night was the first time he’d been able to see his play performed. It is a magical and heartbreaking moment when he shares how nervous he was to see the performance. When he tells us he slept badly. When he explains how he didn’t have the nerve to introduce himself the previous night. Yet here he is, Nassim Soleimanpour.
He takes the usually empty seat reserved for the writer, and the play resumes. But it has taken on an even greater significance to those of us in the room. This is no longer the story of someone we have never met. All of the players are physically in the room, for only the second time in the play’s history. Cassidy still speaks for Soleimanpour. The experiment continues.
This is certainly not the usual theatre experience. It is at times hilarious, at times harrowing and confronting. Always it is intimate and personal. The actor, the writer and the audience begin as strangers and complete the journey as friends – or are we enemies?
The play will begin in Melbourne in July, with a new host of actors. It’s certainly a worthwhile experiment to be part of.
Rating: 4 ½ stars out of 5
White Rabbit, Red Rabbit
Written by Nassim Soleimanpour
Dramaturgy by Daniel Brooks and Ross Manson
Performed by Miles O’Neill, Helen Cassidy, Richard Fidler, Luisa Hastings Edge, Melanie Zanetti, Lucas Stibbard, Natalie Bochenski or Justin Hamilton.
Turbine Studio, Brisbane Powerhouse
14 – 24 February
World Theatre Festival
www.worldtheatrefestival.com.au
13 – 24 February
