White Rabbit, Red Rabbit

Image source: www.perththeatre.com.au

White Rabbit, Red Rabbit, by Nassim Soleimanpour, is a theatre experiment. There is no director, minimal set, and no rehearsals. Every performance features a different actor who, 48 hours before their performance, is sent an email with a list of instructions, including an order not to drink from the glasses on stage, and another to prepare an ostrich impression. The actor is to know nothing about the play: is not to read reviews, not to Google the writer’s name, not to talk to actors who have already performed. On the night of the performance, when they walk onstage before their audience, only then are they handed the script.

Such a minimalist format – without the distraction of multiple artistic inputs – sets a keen emphasis on the voice of the writer. This is something Soleimanpour toys with. From his desk in Iran in 2010, he is playful as he manipulates an actor and audience, four years into the future, on the other side of the world. He teases us with his gently authoritative, often strange instructions, his compelling, unusual power over us. With White Rabbit, Red Rabbit, Soleimanpour – who at the age of 29 was not allowed to travel because he refused to complete his two year military service – opens his audience up to the idea of travel without a passport, presence without physical company. He reminds us that while he may not be among us, he has still met us – in a way.

Soleimanpour’s writing is open and immediate and deeply honest. The actor, denied preparation, is tricked into being honest too, especially as the script begins to close in. Sam Longley, the opening-night actor, entered armed to the hilt with self-defensive comedic devices – charm, wit and a modicum of attention-seeking. All of these were gradually stripped away as the play proceeded, leaving him quite naked by the end.

Because, while playful, White Rabbit, Red Rabbit caries with it a dark, sinister undertone that manages to implicate its audience and actor soon after drawing them in. The play could be called political, perhaps, but everything is metaphorical, and conclusions are all your own. Still, there are decisions the audience are asked to make, an involvement expected of us that goes well beyond the passive theatre absorption most theatre-goers are accustomed to. It makes for compelling, thoughtful theatre. 

The script remains the same but the variables change each night, producing a very different rendition of White Rabbit, Red Rabbit. Soleimanpour’s work is not only worth going to, it’s worth going to several times.