White Rabbit, Red Rabbit
06 October 2024
SohoPlace
4.0 out of 5.0 stars
SohoPlace is currently staging an exciting run of White Rabbit, Red Rabbit with a star studded cast. Each night, a different actor takes the stage, cold reading a script with no direction, and no idea what they are in for. I booked to see Jason Isaacs participate in this wild experiment.
The stage is completely empty, seating arranged in the round, with just a large turntable containing a single chair and two glasses of water on a small table, rotating continually to give all audience members the same experience. Isaacs casually takes to the stage and opens an envelope containing the script. For the next hour, the actor and audience unite in making this social experiment come to life.
White Rabbit, Red Rabbit is a tale of conformity and social expectations, written by Iranian writer Nassim Soleimanpour in 2010 when he still lived in the city of Shiraz, unable to obtain a passport to leave his country, so he communicates his ideas to the world through this script, directly addressing the audience. This utterly original and unusual script inserts levity through physical comedy, asking the actor to bring audience member to the stage to aide in making the story come to life.
Despite the humorous approach with plenty of funny moments, it tackles some dark subjects. Musing on conformity, mob mentality, unquestioned generational behaviours and thought patterns, it delves into human behaviour in an original and intense way. Only hindered by the safety of theatre, the intensity is somewhat dampened by the stakes being thoroughly limited by the medium itself. Still, it is a confrontational and revealing thought experiment, posing moral questions in mind-bending ways.
With each actor and audience bringing a different spin to the tale, it’s worth going back for more than one visit despite knowing what’s to come. Though the first experience with this play is surely the most memorable for each audience member and actor alike.
