An improvised tour-de-force performance

by Erik Abbott

It is an axiom of the theatre that no two live performances are ever exactly the same. Repeated viewings of the same production will reveal subtle (or sometimes not-so-subtle) variations from night to night. Different audiences will respond differently to the same words and actions and images. Such is the magical "liveness" of theatre.

Iranian playwright Nassim Soleimanpour’s fascinating piece White Rabbit, Red Rabbit, which was presented in its one English language showing in Luxembourg on Wednesday at Théâtre National du Luxembourg (TNL), deliberately exacerbates the mercurial nature of live performance.

A solo performer, in this case the excellent Jules Werner, receives a sealed envelope containing the script, which he or she has not read. The envelope is opened and the actor reads the play aloud and follows the instructions. The resulting journey of discovery is one jointly experienced by the actor and the audience.

The idea can perhaps initially sound gimmicky or precious, but the result, in the hands of an actor as skilled as Werner, is mesmerising.

A funny and startling experiment

Soleimanpour’s text, for calling White Rabbit, Red Rabbit a play is inherently a bit of a stretch—the author aptly describes the work as "something similar to a play" and ‘"an experiment"—is funny and startling. It deftly navigates between whimsy and foreboding. The playwright wrote the work after being denied a passport and the right to travel after refusing to serve in the Iranian military.

From a starting point that is almost a highly structured bit of improvisational sketch comedy, the piece shifts into an unnerving parable of manipulation and control. The very act of viewing a performance is humorously poked and prodded until the power dynamics between the performer and the audience themselves are called into question.

Who is being manipulated? By whom? At what point have we been gently and willingly coaxed into being metaphorical monsters?

Tremendously entertaining

Yet, despite the cultivated disquiet, the evening is tremendously entertaining. Werner is a comforting, secure presence, a genial and welcoming guide into Soleimanpour’s vision and world. The journey is at times disturbing, but we are in safe hands.

Or are we? In speaking the author’s words, Werner is his voice, his stand-in, and Soleimanpour does not necessarily want to make us feel safe. Quite the opposite often seems to be the case. Therefore engaged simultaneously by Werner and by Soleimanpour, in a precisely calculated performative event in which the author is the dominant character, the audience experiences the actor’s relationship with Soleimanpour. We recognise his struggles in the journey, celebrate the victories and worry about the risks.

Until again, the question arises—who is manipulating whom? And to what end?

Fraught with possibility and unforgettable

In live performance, we are reminded, anything can happen. Every new page of the text is fraught with possibility. What will Soleimanpour have Werner say next? What will he make him do? How complicit are we in watching it?

A conceptual piece, a tour-de-force performance opportunity for an actor (absolutely realised by Werner), a once-in-a-lifetime theatrical event, a seductive experiment in what it means to be a spectator and to what degree we manipulate those around us and to what degree we can be manipulated—White Rabbit, Red Rabbit is all of these things. Consciously. Deliberately. With equal parts wit and absurdity and unease skilfully and unforgettably mixed.

When and Where

Two performances of White Rabbit Red Rabbit remain:

In German with Nickel Bösenberg, Thursday, 11 June at 8pm

In Luxembourgish with Christiane Rausch, Thursday, 2 July at 8pm.

Tickets: www.luxembourg-ticket.lu or phone 47 08 95 1