Review: Nassim

Nassim 
Arts Centre Melbourne
23 January 2018
Fairfax Studio
to 28 January
artscentremelbourne.com.au

Nassim Soleimanpour

 روزی روزگاری

Nassim Soleimanpour's new work Nassim opened at the Edinburgh Festival last year and we are so lucky to have it at Arts Centre Melbourne this week. He wrote White Rabbit Red Rabbit , which is all anyone who has seen Rabbit needs to know.

Thirty-seven-year-old Soleimanpour is from Iran. He now lives in Berlin and is best known for his 2010 White Rabbit Red Rabbit. A performer only performs it once. They get the script when they walk onto the stage in front of the audience. He wrote it in Iran and posted it to the world because he couldn't get a passport. For once, the world – at least our theatre world – listened and it's been translated from Farsi into 25 languages and been performed all over the place by famously known, respected and/or loved performers. The author finally saw a production in 2013, in Brisbane.

As the Rabbit experience is so dependent on performer and audience discovering the text at the same time, writing anything about it is almost unfair.

Nassim is more developed than Rabbit but it is similar in that the performer gets the script when they walk onto the stage. And saying anything about it is almost unfair.

But it's wonderful. I'm smiling as I think about it.

It's about family and home and language and story and how little it takes to feel connected and dismiss any notions of difference.

And never think that it's gimmick theatre. The structure is remarkable and the emotion is real.

On opening night, performer Alison Bell was as nervous as is expected, and much of the experience is being with the performer as they become comfortable with the audience – who also relax and realise that they are part of the experience and not faceless watchers in the dark. As the performer begins to enjoy the experience of having no idea of what's about to happen, the audience switch from being so grateful that they are not on stage to, maybe, wishing that they were.

Especially as there is another person making the performance: Nassim Soleimanpour.

You've missed Alison Bell and Benjamin Law, but Charlie Pickering, Nakkiah Lui, Catherine McClements and Denise Scott are on for the rest of the week.

This is theatre that connects and celebrates and a mini community is formed from each performance; it's our shared experience with the performer and playwright. I know that sometime this year I will meet a stranger who was there, and we will become friends as we discover we were both saw this performance and begin to talk about it.

Review: White Rabbit, Red Rabbit

White Rabbit, Red Rabbit
Malthouse Theatre
26 July 2013
Beckett Theatre, Malthouse
to 31 July
malthousetheatre.com.au

In fairness to every actor who will perform White Rabbit, Red Rabbit and to every one who will be in an audience of a production, this is spoiler free. But, even still, please only keep reading if you've seen it, performed it or are Nassim Soleimanpour.

Wait, if you're thinking of seeing it, the answer is HELL YES.

When Nassim Soleimanpour was 29, he was living in Iran and didn't have a passport. He wrote White Rabbit, Red Rabbit to feel a sense of freedom.

It's not an especially well-written piece, but it has the audience in its paws from the first moment. A lone actor performs, but they don't see the script until they walk onto the stage, pick it up and start reading.

So you can see why there's an obligation to not write anything about it. Too much of the experience is about the actor discovering each new word at the same time as the audience. For those who saw An Oak Tree in 2008, this has a similar conceit, but the Tree had the writer on stage with the performer.

Like Tree, the actor can't do Rabbit again. And the more it gets performed, the more likely that actors have seen it or know something about it, which will leave them out of the running. Since 2009, it's been translated into many languages and performed all over the world. There's always an empty seat in the front row for Soleimanpour. And he has seen it.

But Rabbit's not about getting distracted by the writer's personal story and the history of the work; it's about discovering the text and story with the actor – and the audience are a vital part of this discovery. How often does an audience know as much as the performer and are as important to the writer as the performer is?

Having audience members who have seen it before will also impact a performance. Not that this will stop people from seeing it again. I'd have happily gone each night to see Rodney Afif, Alison Bell, Alan Brough, Shareena Clanton, Daniela Farinacci, Ming-Zhu Hii, Bert LaBonté, John Leary, Caroline Lee, Brian Lipson, Catherine McClements, Genevieve Morris, Brian Nankervis and Sam Pang perform.

But even if I do go again, it will never compare to the moment-by-moment discovery of the first time.

I saw Alan Brough. I was 82, my purple hat was a red hat and someone had a carrot.

And this is Nassim Soleimanpour's email: nassim.sn@gmail.com.

This was on AussieTheatre.com.