About the work
White Rabbit Red Rabbit is a play for a single performer by the Iranian playwright Nassim Soleimanpour, written in English in 2010. Having refused military service, Soleimanpour was denied a passport at the time and could not leave Iran – the text was meant to travel the world in his place. It premiered in 2011 simultaneously at the SummerWorks festival in Toronto and at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe; the German translation is by Nico Laubisch.
Plot
The play needs no director, no rehearsals and no set: each night a different person performs it, someone who has never read the text and only takes the script out of a sealed envelope in front of the audience. Through this performer the absent author speaks directly to the room, talks about himself and his country, hands out tasks and brings audience members onto the stage. Between animal impressions and the fable of a rabbit that wants to be admitted to a circus, obedience, conformity and the question of responsibility draw ever closer; two glasses of water stand on the table.
Cultural significance
The play has been translated into more than 30 languages and performed over 3,000 times, among others by Whoopi Goldberg, Nathan Lane, John Hurt and Ken Loach; in 2016 it ran off-Broadway at New York's Westside Theatre, and in 2024 in London's West End. In 2011 it won the SummerWorks award for outstanding new performance text and the Arches Brick Award in Edinburgh.