Summerworks 2011
White Rabbit, Red Rabbit
by Nassim Soleimanpour
Volcano and Necessary Angel
An Iranian playwright cannot leave his country. He did not dedicate himself to 2 years of military service, so he could not get a visa. This is how the play begins. I hesitate to even call it a "play" as Nassim destroys much of the structure that I think of when I think of the world "play". He speaks to us through his play (being thousands of miles away), through his actor. The actor is improvising, and yet strictly following a script–she has never seem it before. Pages fall from her hands and yet the words flow out like she has read them a multitude of times prior. The audience is engaged, almost forced to be a part of the play. We begin by counting ourselves, one by one, like schoolchildren on a bus, making sure we are all present. "It is important" Nassaim speaks through his actor.
The actor tells us a story about his uncle who bred rabbits. The title of the play has its basis in this story. He placed a ladder in the rabbits’ cage with a carrot on top (at this point in the play, the actor asks the audience for something to represent a carrot that she can put on top of the ladder in the space; an audience member yells “How about a carrot” and tosses one onto the stage from the lunch in her purse). The rabbit that happens up the ladder gets a carrot. Eventually, this becomes learned behaviour and Nassaim’s uncle takes away the carrot. Generations of rabbits go by. With the carrot gone, the “successful” rabbit is the only one not doused with cold water–for failing to become the “red rabbit”, all the while rabbits on the bottom of the ladder get punished. Generations of rabbits go by. When this becomes learned behaviour, the red rabbit gets attacked as he comes down the ladder to rejoin the group. Generations of rabbits go by. One step further, when the white rabbits are not doused in cold water, they still attack the red rabbit (who has no carrot and just happens up the ladder of curiosity). This learned behaviour is somehow passed down through generations and becomes the backbone of this play: follow because it is what you know or question that authority? The entire structure of the play asks that question, and when you notice it, it is surely uncomfortable.
The place where this structure of authority is most obviously and uncomfortably put into perspective is when we are brought to notice and question the existence of two “normal” glasses of water that sit on a table on the stage. They are there at the beginning of the play. Early on in the play, an audience member is asked to put a vial of “poison” into one of them while the audience watches and the actor does not. Nassaim explains though the actor that later on in the play, the actor must drink one of the glasses. It seems so innocent, innocuous, almost silly. But then the actor speaks a monologue about the 18 different way there are to kill yourself (a most uncomfortable dialogue). Then the actor asks an audience member to take notes as someone in the audience might be asked to speak at a murder trial (Nassaim’s murder trial). And then you are reminded of the Red Rabbit story by audience members forced to play out the skit as the actor narrates. So the simple idea of poison in a glass becomes more and more of a real possibility as the play goes on. The audience gets very uncomfortable. The scene comes to a head when the actor comes and sits at the front of the stage with the two glasses by her side. It has come time for her to drink. She asks the audience if anyone has anything to say before she does so. “You don’t need to drink, you have to think of your own safety. Its just a play!” More menacingly, “If you don’t drink, why have we watched this play?” This dialogue continues, the audience shouting out their worries, tension building–is it real? Could it be real? Could it really be poison? Save yourself! It’s just a play! Don’t be a rabbit, you have free will! The actor picks up the glasses and looks at them. A young man runs through the audience from a back row, asks “Can I have a look at those?”, takes the glasses to the bathroom, empties them, brings them back–empty–to place upside-down on the stage floor. The audience cheers and laughs; “Brilliant!” But the actor continues. She picks up a glass, shakes it to make a drop, and drinks it. She lies down. A new “red rabbit” has been called up to the stage from the audience and tells us that the play is over. The actor is still, lying on her back, not moving. She will not move until the audience is out of the theatre–or will she ever again?
