Unreproducible

Theatre has been around ever since one person decided to tell a story to another person. One of the challenges of being around so long is to constantly stay unique as an experience. Therefore, theatre has constantly evolved new ways, sometimes using and sometimes combating the newer technologies.

A few hundred years ago, the proscenium style theatre was the norm. It still is in the more commercial venues, because of the ability to fit in maximum audience numbers. But with the advent of cinema, the proscenium style, which demarcates the performers on one side and audience on the other, was surrendered to the silver screen. Closer to home, our television soap operas bear a striking similarity to the box set theatre of the eighties.

Some of the most exciting theatre in the world has been about breaking the proscenium relationship. Theatre has become interactive and more visceral. Fuerza Bruta in New York used every possible surface of the venue as a performance area, including the ceiling. Punch Drunk built massive installations across multiple floors of a building where audiences are immersed in the experience. And a troupe in Singapore blindfolded its audience to take them on an auditory and olfactory tour.

Traditionally, the challenge of converting a play into a special ‘live’ experience has been in the hands of the stagers. Probably because there are many old plays written with conventional staging in mind. So Hamlet was reinterpreted for audience on all four sides in Manchester, Merchant of Venice played on an actual street in Venice, and Tartuffe required audience members to step in as various characters and say a line or two.

More recently though, the writers are getting involved; writing plays that cannot work in another medium, and are special because they have been witnessed live. Duncan McMillan, the new toast of the West End, wrote Lungs and Every Brilliant Thing, both which rely on their shared space with the audience. Mike Bartlett’s Cock is another example. These plays have detailed stage directions, and are written in such a way that the joy of the story telling is in watching the actors use their craft to create different locations.

Perhaps the most recent explorer of this form is Nassim Suleimanpour; an Iranian playwright who found himself unable to leave his native country. Therefore he began to write plays so that his words would travel, even if he couldn’t. Wary of misinterpretation, particularly since he couldn’t be present to witness the productions, he devised a new kind of theatre: one that has absolutely no rehearsal. So much so, that the performer receives the text only when he is on stage in front of the audience.

Therefore no actor can perform this play more than once, and also cannot watch a performance until they have performed. There is no director involved.

The play, White Rabbit Red Rabbit, has taken the world by storm.

There are simultaneous productions happening in New York, Edinburgh and India. Each performance is uniquely different due to the new cast member.

The magic of the play is that the actor and the audience discover the play together, as the words are emerging off the page. Yet, the personality of the player informs the text and though it is the same play night after night, it is still completely different to any performance that has preceded it.

Last week I caught an audience member going into the 9 pm performance of White Rabbit Red Rabbit, having just exited from the 7 pm one. I asked, “You are watching it again You already know what it’s about.” She responded, “Of course. We don’t watch multiple versions of Romeo & Juliet for the story. We watch it for the interpretation.”

White Rabbit, Red Rabbit has numerous shows lined up across the country, with different performers each night .and each performance exists for that show only. Each one is unreproducible.

Upcoming performances of White Rabbit Red Rabbit:

August 28, Cuckoo Club, Bandra 5 pm: Preetika Chawla 7 pm: Meher Acharia-Dar 9 pm: Divya Bhatia

September 4: Canvas Laugh Club, Lower Parel. 7 pm: Anu Menon

September 7: RangaShankara, Bengaluru. 3.30 pm: Darius Sunawala 7.30 pm: Arundhati Nag