White Rabbit Red Rabbit, by Iranian
writer Nassim Soleimanpou, challenges us to evaluate the extent of our autonomy
and examine the role we play in the world. Soleimnanpou achieves this by
turning the mechanisms of theatre in upon themselves: there is never a director, there are no
rehearsals, and a different actor takes the lone role every night. The stage is
the same each time: a chair, a ladder, two glasses of water, a vial, and, in a sealed
envelope, the script.
In the case of
the English Theatre Berlin, where White
Rabbit Red Rabbit played for four nights in November, the script was
brought on stage by the artistic director, and handed with quivering fingers to
that night’s actor, both smiling gleefully. The artistic director introduced
the actor and says, ‘I will leave you in his hands …’ and shuffles backwards
into the wings.
The theatre is
still with excitement. The forth wall is broken as the actor cheerily
introduces himself to us in his own, improvised words, diffusing any awkwardness
as he fiddles with the envelope, attempting to extract the script. He tells us
he is nervous. He finally manages to open the envelope, takes out the script,
and begins.
Of course we are
not really in our actor’s hands at all. We are all in the hands of Soleimanpou.
There is an empty seat in the front row reserved for him. It is he who is to
guide us blindly through the evening, and it is he that addresses us directly when
our actor beings to speak.
As a
conscientious objector Soleimanpou is unable to leave Iran and is currently
writing this play in his garden, so he tells us, which is fucking hard. Where are you? This play is his way of
travelling out of Iran. The idea of the play came from a dream he had of
committing suicide on stage, and tonight, he tells us, it is the onstage
suicide of our actor, that we may bear witness to. Dear actor, you didn’t know what you were letting yourself in for …
Our actor makes
comical aghast expression and the audience laugh and he continues to read.
He paces up and
down the stage as Soleimnapou tell us more about himself and his motives for
writing this play, our actor dropping each white, double-spaced page to the
floor as he goes. Soleimanpou tells our actor to give each member of the
audience a number, and then call No. 9 up on to the stage. No. 9, a blonde girl of about that many years,
happens to be our actor’s daughter. We
are told that the vial on the table contains poison, and are all, save for father
and daughter, under Soleimanpou’s direction, requested to close our eyes while
the latter pours the contents of that vial into one of the glasses of water.
At the end of
the night the actor will have to choose one of those glasses to drink from. They
are left to stand on the table behind him.
Amongst chuckles
and cooing his daughter returns to her seat and the evening continues. More
audience members are invited up on stage, white rabbits who must hide their
ears, and bears that ensure that they do. No. 23 is a wonderfully meek white
rabbit, and No. 41 a suitable stern bear and under our actor’s direction we
follow them into Soleimanpou’s circus where there are leopards pretending to be
ostriches and ostriches pretending to be leopards, and bears who have fallen on
to the stage and so pretend to be leopards pretending to be ostriches, so not
to upset the play.
And then the
ladder is brought to centre stage and more numbers are called out, and more
members of the audience called up. They are all white rabbits, and when our actor
fires the starting gun four of them shuffle and smile sheepishly around the
ladder, while one leaps up to the top to grab the prize, and there is both supportive
laughter and distrustful applause at such boldness.
Soleimanpou is
telling us about his uncle. And he
continue this process until all the rabbits in the cage were new. They continue
to attack each rabbit that ascended the ladder, even though not one of them
knew the reason why they did it, other than ‘that is what is done here’.
An iPhone is
summoned and a picture is taken of our four white rabbits and one red rabbit
standing next to our actor and Soleimanpou asks that it be sent to him. I would love to see you all.
The members of
the audience return to their seats but the ladder remains on stage and under it
the table with the two glasses of water. Soleimanpou regularly brings out
attention back to the ominous pair, but our actor is no methodist and so rolls
his eyes whenever suicide is spoken of. It’s only a play after all. Suicide? Ha!
It’s only a play
after all.
Just a play? Soleimanpou challenges us. But what
if, what if … People don’t really
die in plays, we know this. Yet each time our actor is addresses as ‘Dear actor’ and we are addressed as ‘Dear audience’, and we see another page
of script fall to the ground, this becomes less of a play. Each time the
suspension of disbelief is broken, the possibility of ‘what if’ blooms in front of us once more. For
if this isn’t a play, what exactly is it? And what exactly are we doing here? What
if there is poison in the vial? What if the daughter does hold a grudge? What
if there was a great conspiracy? What if this isn’t just a play?
Ah! but come now, it is just a play! And the actor must
diligently play his role, read his lines, until we leave the theatre at the end
of the evening. That is how this works. What is left of our actor if he is not
to act?
And yet, likewise,
if we too play out part and deign to believe, we are to witness a suicide tonight.
And if we decide not to believe, we decide not to care, and we leave our actor
and the empty glass, and the shadow of the theatre hangs over us.
Night is closing
in, and the excitement we can hear in Soleimanpou’s voice tells us that the
moment when the actor must choose which glass to drink is approaching. He tells
our actor to put the pages of the script down. Who will take them up? Who will finish the play? Who is our red
rabbit? There is silence in the auditorium, and it is still once more. Our actor
has no more lines to read and so cannot dispel the tension. The script lies on
the floor and we wait for someone to pick it up.
Why would anyone
dare put their neck out? Why, when so much comfort is gained by settling into
the crowd? Why when we simply want to fit, and to belong? To rest in peace with
hearthside contentment? I will sit still. I will not make a fuss. I will excuse,
and qualify, and maybe, if there is no hope, say, ‘Well then, next time …’
So the two
glasses are placed in front of us as well. We have two options. Firstly, though
ignoble, and selfish, and cowardly, we are offered a way out, if things were
ever to get too bad. A way to pull the curtain cord, announce the end, drop our
script and end the treadmill of suffering.
Secondly, we could try and save the actor? We could storm the stage. We
could tear the script, and break the vial, knock over the glasses and with
rabid eyes and bared teeth destroy the theatre. We could smash up the empty,
reserved seat, while the frantic artistic director hops about in the wings:
‘Naturalism! Next season, only naturalism!’
But this will
never happen. The artistic director will return in comfort to the lobby, and take
a drink with the actor, two glasses in front of them, and his daughters and
partner. We will leave the stage, and return to the world. But White Rabbit Red Rabbit will not leave
us. For if the world truly is a stage, and we merely players, then all the
world’s a cage.
And the script
sits on the floor of the theatre and we wait for someone to pick it up.
Bertie Digby Alexander
Berlin 2013
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