The premise of White Rabbit, Red Rabbit is simple: each night, a different actor is handed everything they need to know about the play in a sealed brown envelope. This actor, who has never before seen or read the script, then opens it in front of the live audience, reads the 14 precise instructions contained inside, and begins to perform.
While the concept might sound straightforward, however, preparing to execute it is understandably anything but.
“I know nothing!” laughs opening night actress France Perras, seated in a sun-lit cafe in East Vancouver last week. “Part of my thing is research, right?” she continues, her hazel eyes flashing with excitement. “But I’ve done none of that, because I’m terrified I’m going to discover something, and I really want to go in with this open spirit, where I have no prejudgments.”
In fact, any actors cast in White Rabbit, Red Rabbit are expressly forbidden to have seen the show or know anything about it.
It’s a tough ask of a play that has become a global hit.
Written by Iranian playwright Nassim Soleimanpour in his 20s, White Rabbit, Red Rabbit captures the isolation of a young man unable to leave his country. At the time, Soleimanpour’s refusal to perform his required military service left him unable to obtain a passport.
Looking to live vicariously through his art, he completed the monologue over seven years and then sent it out into the world, dissecting his experience in a groundbreaking allegorical theatrical experiment that requires no director, no set, no rehearsals, and a different actor every time.
Since it debuted in 2011, the award-winning play has been performed in 15 languages. (Soleimanpour, who eventually regained his travel rights and now lives in Berlin, has seen it performed in 12.)
It was first presented in Vancouver in English at the Cultch in 2012. Next week, however, it will be performed in French out of Théâtre la Seizième – BC’s only French-language professional theatre company – under the name Lapin blanc, lapin rouge.
In order to make the experience inclusive to English-speaking audiences, however, surtitles will be provided on opening night, as well as the Thursday and Saturday night performances.
“All I know, honestly, is I’m showing up at eight o’clock [on Tuesday] and I’m being handed an envelope,” says Perras, a bilingual, Jessie Richardson Award-winning performer who makes her living not only in theatre, but film, television and radio as well. “I think as actors we prepare on a variety of levels, but this time, because the script isn’t involved, I’m taking it as an opportunity to look at things differently. To try to learn about my process, how I work, and how can I make it better?”
And she’s not alone; four other incredible actors, under the artistic direction of Craig Holzschuh, will be taking on the task between Jan. 26-30: Vancouver director and actor Cory Haas (Wednesday), playwright and Radio Canada personality Lyne Barnabé (Thursday), popular Radio Canada host and actress Marie Villeneuve (Friday), and Montreal actor and Le Théâtre de La Manufacture artistic director Denis Bernard on Saturday.
“Saturday is really exciting,” says Perras. “[Bernard] has brought shows here before, but he’s never actually acted in Vancouver, I don’t think.”
Meanwhile, as the thespians get back to their cold-reading roots, any Anglos in the audience will be flexing their dormant French skills.
“I have [English-speaking] friends who say, because they’re getting comfortable with the experience, they’re picking up a lot more than they thought,” says Perras, who likens seeing French theatre to being a traveller. “They’re not looking at the surtitles as much, and they’re living the experience much more intuitively, and that to me is interesting. Because when do we get that opportunity to put ourselves in that kind of situation where, maybe we don’t understand everything? Sometimes when you don’t understand everything, it actually opens you up in a different way.”
So Alice, now’s your chance: take a risk, test your French, and take a trip down the rabbit hole.
• Lapin blanc, lapin rouge runs Jan. 26-30 at Studio 16 (1545 W 7th). Tickets from $9-$28; Seizieme.ca
