An actor stands alone on a stage. There is no set to speak of, perhaps only a chair and a small table. In their hands is a sealed envelope, the paper crisp under the stage lights. They have never seen what is inside. The audience, a body of strangers held together by a shared, quiet anticipation, watches as the seal is broken. The performance begins at the precise moment the actor starts to read.
This is the unnerving, electric premise of White Rabbit, Red Rabbit, the theatrical high-wire act by Iranian writer Nassim Soleimanpour. Running at Soho Place, it is less a play in the traditional sense and more of a living, breathing experiment conducted nightly. There is no director. There are no rehearsals. The script is a message in a bottle, and each evening a new actor is the one to find it washed ashore, tasked with reading its contents aloud to the world for the very first time.
The act of watching it unfold is a lesson in vulnerability. We are so accustomed to the polish of performance, to the seamless delivery of lines memorised and blocking perfected over weeks in a rehearsal room. Here, that entire artifice is stripped away. We witness the raw process of discovery in real time. We see the actor’s flicker of surprise, their brief hesitation before a difficult sentence, the subtle shift in posture as the meaning of a paragraph settles in. Their journey through the text is our journey. In a sense, the real drama is not just in the words being read, but in the volatile space between the actor, the page, and the audience.
A Roster of the Brave
To agree to perform White Rabbit, Red Rabbit is an act of professional courage. It requires an artist to abandon the tools they have spent a lifetime honing – preparation, character development, memorisation – and rely solely on instinct. It is a testament to the play’s reputation that the run at Soho Place has attracted a roster of actors whose names alone carry weight.
Consider the possibilities. When Michael Sheen takes the stage, one anticipates a performance of intellectual rigour, an actor who will dissect the text’s nuances with surgical precision. The prospect of Miriam Margolyes, an artist whose very presence is an explosion of personality, promises something entirely different – a reading filled with irreverent humour and profound humanity, likely in the same breath. Then there is the quiet intensity of Toby Jones, the classical gravitas of Jonathan Pryce, or the sharp intelligence of Katherine Parkinson.
This is the engine of the show’s allure. The script itself does not change, but its soul is reborn each night. The text functions almost like a musical score in a jazz improvisation; the notes are fixed, but the interpretation, the rhythm, the emotional colour, is entirely up to the musician. An audience member could attend three nights in a row and witness three fundamentally different plays. This constant flux creates a rare feeling of immediacy, a sense that you are present for an event that is singular, unrepeatable, and beautifully ephemeral.
The Playwright’s Message in a Bottle
To understand the heart of White Rabbit, Red Rabbit, you must understand its origin. Nassim Soleimanpour wrote the play in 2010 as a young man in Tehran. As a conscientious objector, he was denied a passport and forbidden from leaving his native Iran. The play became his passport. It was a vessel designed to travel the world he could not, to speak to people he could not meet.
This context transforms the work from a clever theatrical conceit into something far more resonant. It is a profound exploration of freedom and confinement, of obedience and rebellion. The script is laced with allegory, often addressing the audience and the actor with a series of commands, questions, and playful manipulations. Who is in control here? The writer, whose words dictate the action from thousands of miles away? The actor, who chooses the tone and emphasis? Or the audience, whose reactions shape the energy in the room?
The play subtly explores the mechanics of power and the consequences of blind trust. At times, the instructions are whimsical. At other times, they are unnervingly direct. Through this dynamic, Soleimanpour’s voice emerges – not as a disembodied author, but as a living presence in the room, a ghost in the machine guiding us through a social experiment of his own design. He could not be there in person, so he sent his words instead. The actor, then, becomes more than a performer; they become a conduit, a medium for a voice that refused to be silenced by borders.
The Audience as Participant
One of the most compelling aspects of the experience is its deliberate demolition of the fourth wall. The script does not simply acknowledge the audience; it enlists them. There are moments where the actor is instructed to ask for a show of hands, to single someone out, to share a story, or to create a small moment of collective action. This is not arbitrary gimmickry. It is essential to the play’s thesis.
By making the audience active participants, Soleimanpour forces us to confront our own role in the performance. We are not passive consumers of a finished product. We are collaborators, co-conspirators in this one-night-only event. The shared laughter, the collective gasp, the charged silence – these are all part of the play’s fabric. The boundaries between spectator and stage dissolve, and for a short while, everyone in the room is part of the same uncertain journey.
This collaborative element is what makes the experience so potent. It reminds us that theatre, at its core, is a communal act. It is about the physical presence of bodies in a shared space, responding to a story. In an era dominated by the isolated consumption of digital media, White Rabbit, Red Rabbit serves as a powerful testament to the irreplaceable magic of live performance. It offers a connection that is real, tangible, and thrillingly unpredictable.
A Defiant Act of Imagination
Ultimately, White Rabbit, Red Rabbit is more than just an inventive piece of theatre. It is a celebration of the resilience of the human spirit and the defiant power of storytelling. It emerged from a place of restriction, yet its very structure is a monument to freedom and spontaneity. It trusts the actor to be brave, the audience to be open, and the words themselves to bridge the gaps between cultures, languages, and continents.
Watching the play, you are left to ponder the nature of narrative itself. How much of a story is inherent in the words, and how much is created by the person telling it? By stripping the process down to its most basic elements, Soleimanpour reveals the extraordinary alchemy that occurs in the simple act of one person telling a story to another.
In a world that often feels overly managed and algorithmically predicted, this play is a breath of fresh, chaotic air. It is a reminder that the most memorable human experiences are often the ones that are unscripted. It invites us to step into a space of not-knowing, to embrace uncertainty, and to simply be present for whatever happens next. For anyone who believes in the elemental power of theatre, it is an essential experience.
