A different kind of theatre

Theatre in Hyderabad has certainly evolved over the years, with the city witnessing several landmark plays being staged. One such was on the occasion of World Theatre Day on Tuesday, when Break A Leg!, a Hyderabad-based digital media platform brought White Rabbit, Red Rabbit, a play written by Iranian playwright Nassim Soleimanpour to the city for the first time at the Apollo Foundation Theatre.

Talking about the play, founder of Break A Leg!, Ankit Bakshi says, “In Soleimanpour’s native country, Iran, every man needs to serve two years of national military service to be eligible for obtaining a passport. Having objected to the mandatory service, he is not allowed to travel outside the country. Unable to travel, he used his isolation to write this play which requires no director. It is indeed the purest form of theatre — with only the actor, script and audience.

There is a different actor for each performance, who will receive a sealed envelope containing the script directly on stage.”

White Rabbit, Red Rabbit pushes the very boundary of theatrical performance in comedy and drama. Every performance is by a different actor who gets to read the script for the first time on stage. Interestingly, though the 37-year-old Nassim has been forbidden to leave Iran, his play has travelled the world since its debut at Edinburgh in 2011. 

The play has also been translated into 25 languages and been performed over 1,000 times by some of the biggest names in theatre and film all over the world. In Hyderabad, theatre veteran R.K. Shenoy took the challenge of going onto the stage without any rehearsals or script readings. 

Elaborating on the challenge, Shenoy says, “We had been thinking about bringing this play to Hyderabad for about two years now, but thought it would be better to have a seasoned actor to take up this daring act. Although I finally found myself accepting the challenge, I can’t enact it again.” 

He adds, “When I was first approached for it, I knew it would be difficult, I wouldn’t be able to rehearse or read the script. However seasoned an actor one may be, before every performance, one gets jitters even if one has learned the lines by heart. Imagine for this play, I didn’t even know what I would do on stage.”
Even as Shenoy enacted the role of a lifetime, the audience laughed and cried at the twists and turns in Soleimanpour’s play.