Nassim Soleimanpour / Bush Theatre
| Written & performed by: | Nassim Soleimanpour |
| With: | A new performer each show |
| Director: | Omar Elerian |
| Designer: | Rhys Jarman |
| Sound Design: | James Swadlo |
| Lighting design: | Rajiv Pattani |
| Production manager: | Michael Ager |
| Script editors: | Carolina Ortega and Stewart Pringle |
| NASSIM was originally created and produced by London’s Bush Theatre, at which it had its world premiere on 25 July 2017 | |
| The NASSIM presentation in Madrid has the support of La Casa Encendida and British Council | |
"A vivid and unconventional celebration of the vitality of theatre.”.The Guardian
Iranian playwright and director Nassim Soleimanpour is internationally known for the success of the acclaimed White Rabbit, Red Rabbit, translated into more than 25 languages, a theatre piece with no director and no rehearsals that follows a strict model that is mandatory to fulfil: one show for one performer—different at each function—who knows nothing of the script or the piece until moments before going on stage. The performer further takes a vow of silence after the function ends. The production has been performed over 1000 times, including by artists at the heights of Ken Loach, Stephen Fry and Whoopi Goldberg. This experiment was devised by the author to cross borders and communicate outside his country’s borders when he was banned from leaving—in 2011 he refused to do his two years of military service and the Iranian authorities took his passport—and has ended up becoming a symbol of freedom that makes viewers ponder questions related to obedience, humanity and death.
Similar artistic threads weave together his new creation, NASSIM, a work performed by a different artist every night that must join the playwright on stage and follow his directions while the theatre script remains unseen in a sealed box on the stage. The initial uncertainty leads to an autobiographical exercise that is so moving, powerful and beset with humour that it becomes a universal and recognisable story.
What is it that makes us feel strange and defenceless in a foreign country? What defines our thoughts and identities? Language. Whether through censure or posing the difficulties of speaking one language and feeling and thinking in another, NASSIMexplores the freedom and limitations of language in an astonishing theatrical demonstration of how words can both divide and unite us. A new and daring stage experiment centred on our capacity to communicate with and learn from our fellow man. An unconventional piece that invites us to trust others, in a three bandwidth dialogue—playwright, actor and audience—in which everybody must make an effort to understand and be understood. Because, as director Omar Elerian points out: ‘If a man is an island, language is the bridge that connects us to an archipelago of thoughts, ideas, cultures and civilisations’.