As someone who's got through two degrees and works in a job where getting asked difficult/awkward/stupid questions is par for the course, the notion of winging it is not unfamiliar.
And in truth, as much as my organisational skills are my only superpower, I quite like making stuff up as I go along. This is one of the (admitedly less important) reasons why I am not an actor. My abject lack of any dramatic talent being perhaps another.
I feel, possibly quite wrongly, that playwright Nassim Soleimanpour might have some sympathy with this view. Soleimanpour's calling card is the idea of the play where the actor sees the script for the first time as he starts to act it in front of an audience. Winging it: the drama school edition. The lovely little Bush Theatre is currently doing a season of his work, The Nassim Plays, with a cast to die for and I'm seeing/have seen two of them. The first is White Rabbit Red Rabbit with Dominic West as the performer.
It's very difficult to review this show without giving away too much about what happens and I really, really don't want to do that. #KeepTheSecrets, to hijack another show's hashtag. What I will say is that Soleimanpour's writing is extraordinarily clever and his exploration of notions of freedom, mortality and the nature of theatre and writing itself are profound. Soleimanpour is Iranian and, having refused National Service, was refused a passport (at the time of writing this play anyway) and I found the passage about the power of writing in making him free, in some form, extremely powerful. And the line about life being the longest form of suicide strikes a powerful chord.
The form of the show - part serious monologue, part stand up, part audience participation variety hour - is something that actor and audience really have to give themselves over to and, in truth, I found that quite challenging. I've never been to the theatre and been made to feel inadequate as an audience member before, but WRRR has some very interesting quetions to ask about the nature of observation and what an audience is actually for. I enjoyed the boldness with which this was posed, even as it made me squirm slightly in my seat.
It is also extremely demanding for the actor and I can only imagine how stilted and awful this show would be were they not prepared to throw themselves into it with no holds barred. Dominic West seems a rather leftfield (or perhaps un-leftfield) choice for this sort of show, but he totally nailed it. He was excellent in the serious moments and enjoyably goofy in the funnier bits. Plus a voice like his is made for Soleimanpour's rich, dense text. And the physical demands made of the performer were well met, a point I wish I could expand on but Secrets. Suffice to say I always thought he was a majestic creature and now I have proof.
There is something deeply profound, provocative and moving at the heart of White Rabbit Red Rabbit that will stay with me for a long time. I think it will genuinely change the way I look at theatre as a form and at what it means to be an audience member for a long time to come. Or maybe only until I see the second of the Nassim Plays series in a couple of days. I guess we'll see.
The Nassim Plays are at the Bush Theatre until 16th September, including White Rabbit Red Rabbit playing both matinee and evening shows on the 16th (with Scottee and Meera Syal respectively).
