S’pore Fringe Fest 2015: Who framed Red Rabbit?

SINGAPORE — The playful and eccentric meta-theatrical piece White Rabbit Red Rabbit is certainly an interesting experience. Iranian playwright Nassim Soleimanpour wrote it as a reaction to his inability to travel overseas. His passport had been revoked because he refused to do compulsory national service, and it’s up to his script to do what he couldn’t.

There’s more: It’s a piece with no director, no set, and requires a different actor for each performance (after last night’s Lim Kay Siu, up next are Pam Oei, Benjamin Kheng and Karen Tan). And each one comes onstage with no idea what they’re about to do: Lim was ceremoniously handed a sealed envelope containing the script.

But it’s not so much Whose Line Is It Anyway? as it is Whose Theatre Is It Anyway?.

So what exactly took place? Well, here’s I bring out the “spoiler alert” tag. Because, in a great way, talking about White Rabbit Red Rabbit will spoil the fun for anyone planning to watch it. Just like the performer who reads and reacts to the script for the first time, we are put in a parallel situation as audience members. Especially since spontaneous reactions seem quite pivotal to this piece. And don’t forget, you’ll be watching a different actor with his or her own gameplan.

So if you’ve already got tickets, I suggest you stop reading, and perhaps come back to compare experiences, because you’ll most definitely have a different one.

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SPOILER ALERT INSERTED HERE.

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White Rabbit Red Rabbit’s “narrative” is pretty simple: It’s about an actor and the possibility that he/she will die at the end. He has to choose between two glasses of water. One of these is purportedly poisoned.

Suleimanpour layers this dilemma with two rabbit-themed mini-stories: An absurdist fable about a rabbit going to the theatre and a morbid experiment about starving rabbits fighting for food. The end result for both is chaos.

But in his stripped down world, these are all dumped into a Brechtian blender, and the moral and philosophical issues raised are directly connected to the idea of theatre-making.

“This is when actor, audience, writer meet,” he says, in the script Lim reads. Extremely self-reflexive — which could be irritatingly smart-alecky if you’re not in the mood — you are made aware exactly of those three basic elements of theatre (while sound, set and lighting designers collectively sneeze elsewhere).

Audiences count off, some are requested to take notes, others to take part (including ST arts reporter Corrie Tan!).

“Words are from me, performance from him,” Lim reads Suleiman’s words. The latter challenges and jolts the actor, with lines about “what some crazy Iranian writer wants me to do… fucking terrorist.” (Flustered, Lim explains it was in the script. In fact, he does a lot of explaining about things being in the script, and his cheerful, paternal kind of disposition in the performance would likely be different from the other three.)

And of course, you are made completely aware of the playwright, who likewise imagines you imagining him. He gives his email so you can email him. He explains the circumstances behind the piece, writing in Shiraz, avoiding writing a “play” type of play, how Facebook in Iran is filtered, the possibility of police coming for anyone connected to the play.

There are things unsaid here, and it’s primarily suggestive of the political situation in Iran. But compared to another recent similarly-themed and suggestive piece, Amir Reza Koohestani’s Amid The Clouds at last year’s SIFA, this one was more convincing.

Perhaps because everything that makes up this world is what’s at stake here. In the performance’s conscious dismantling of the many elements, you do think about all these things a bit more (perhaps at the expense of completely grasping his two rabbit allegories, for me at least). In the end, one becomes fully aware of the play, its potential, and everyone’s role in it.

Suleimanpour describes the act of writing White Rabbit Red Rabbit as creating a “gun”, “a machine for ending life.” It could be one that reinforces it, too.

White Rabbit Red Rabbit runs until Jan 24 at Esplanade Recital Studio. For details, visit http://www.singaporefringe.com.