Thursday 27 September 2012

VOICES: White Rabbit, Red Rabbit or How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Trust Nassim (by Peter Daly)

Actor Peter Daly reflects on his performance of White Rabbit, Red Rabbit in the Irish Times:

Peter Daly
"The audience is applauding. I have to assume it is my stupidity that they are celebrating.

I am now alone on stage. I give the audience a cheesy grin. I am being cheap. I am hoping I will win them over by letting them know that I know how ridiculous this proposition is and that we all know it will never work. They laugh. Never underestimate cheapness.

I much-too-carefully place the envelope beside the two glasses of water on the single small table on stage. It is a delaying tactic. I feel that until I read the first line on the first page that I won't have really started. And if I haven't started, I haven't yet begun to fail.

I look at the audience again and raise an eyebrow as if to say, here we go. Again, they give a small laugh. It relaxes me. It suggests that there is a chance that they want this to work as much as I do."

Read the full piece here.

AWARDS: Absolut Fringe 2012 (Ireland)

Gina Moxley


Congratulations to Gina Moxley, who won the Next Stage Wild Card Award for her performance in White Rabbit, Red Rabbit at Absolut Fringe in Dublin! Read the full list of winners and nominees at fringefest.com.

VOICES: Nassim on the BBC

Have a listen to this BBC podcast, including an interview with Nassim! Click here.

VOICES: Straight.com on Randomness and Risk at The Cultch (Vancouver)

Colin Thomas of Straight.com put White Rabbit, Red Rabbit in context with Blind Date, another show performing at The Cultch in Vancouver. While distinct on the surface, both embrace randomness and risk as means to drive forward performance.

You can read the full article here. An excerpt from Nassim's interview:

"Soleimanpour is quick to point out that the play's themes speak to issues that go beyond the borders of his country. 'I don't know why everyone likes to interpret the play as talking about my fucking political situation in Iran,' he complains. Being seen as a critic of the government is risky and, as he explains, 'The play is working without me in your country.'

Still, there's no denying the impact of the evening's most concrete image: an empty chair in the front row that speaks to the playwright's absence.

Soleimanpour remembers a Brazilian man who emailed him to share his experience of White Rabbit. The man entered the theatre with his mom, who joked that they should sit next to the absent author and talk to him. The man demurred, saying, 'I don't know any words in Persian.' But later he wrote to Soleimanpour: 'We sat somewhere else, and then we came to this part of the play where you say, 'I'm not going to be at the show; maybe you have to keep an empty chair for me.' Suddenly, I started to cry and I thought to myself, 'I have to go back to my place and send you this email. Whenever you have your passport, you have a chair at my place. My mom will cook you something. And then we're going to sit and drink some beers together.'

In Iran, Soleimanpour received this email and wept."

REVIEW: 4 Stars from Entertainment.ie

****4 Stars (out of five) from Entertainment.ie:

"DISCLAIMER: Seeing this play resulted in my ending up playing a bunny rabbit on stage and climbing a ladder to fight with my friend's boyfriend over an imaginary carrot while Stephen Rea scolded me for being a bold bunny. Fact."

...

"This is not a perfect play for everyone, but it is a beautiful exploration of where theatre can take you, where an actor can take an audience and how far the words of a writer can travel with or without his passport."

Read the full review here.

REVIEW: 4 Stars From Irish Times

****4 Stars (out of 5) from Irish Times:

Academy Award
nominee Stephen Rea
[The actor] "was the effortlessly charismatic Stephen Rea, but through direct address, good-humoured audience involvement, comic allegory and philosophical provocation, Soleimanpour is the more conspicuous figure. It helps that Rea, despite his fame, is an actor who can disappear - and that he does a good ostrich impression."

Read the full review here.

VOICES: Randomness and Uncertainty (blog)

A few thoughts on White Rabbit, Red Rabbit from the blog Randomness and Uncertainty:

"Sometimes, not many, but sometimes one encounters a piece of art - it could be a painting, a film or a photo - that, by its uniqueness and originality, hypnotizes. It makes you pay it your whole attention, keep your eyes on it for as long as possible. Hypnotizes."

Read the full post here.