2021
White Rabbit Red Rabbit by Nassim Soleimanpour
performed by Beau Dixon
See the printed matter: Show Flyer / Show Program
See the event web page
The COVID pandemic was nearing the one-year mark of the day in March of 2020 when theatres around the world shut their doors. On that day in the Public Energy offices in the Market Hall we all said good-bye to one another and “See you in two weeks when this whole thing blows over.” We were preparing to produce the 23rd edition of our Emergency Festival of local performance, followed by hosting the dance company Ebnfloh from Montreal to finish off the 2019-2020 season. Luckily our March event, The Chemical Valley Project, had happened in the nick of time on March 6.
As the pandemic dragged on, and it became apparent that in-theatre events would be shut down for an extended period, a theatre booking and management agency in Berlin, Aurora Nova, came up with a novel idea. With travel so heavily restricted, the theatre companies they represented could not go on tour. Instead, Aurora Nova decided to make available a special play to anyone that wanted to produce it, with the requirement that it be performed around the world on the very same day – March 13, 2021 – as an international show resilience in the face adversity.
One of Aurora Nova’s playwrights, the Iranian writer Nassim Soleimanpour, had already written a play well suited to the occasion. It was a pandemic-proof script designed to be performed with no rehearsals – just an actor on a bare stage – with a twist: the actor is not allowed to read the play in advance. This raises the stakes and creates a charged atmosphere between actor and audience that results in a memorable experience of scripted and at the same time fully improvised theatre. The play was White Rabbit Red Rabbit, whose theme is state surveillance and how ordinary citizens are made unwitting enablers. The play comes with the chilling request to journalists writing about the play to keep in mind that “the playwright is an Iranian native. We therefore ask the press to be judicious in their reportage.”
In January of 2021, when the invitation to present this play went out around the world – with the cry “Let There Be Theatre!” – many theatres were experiencing a lull in the pandemic that was resulting in some to tentatively re-open. Perhaps in Peterborough we really could experience the charged atmosphere in the theatre without fearing for our health. So the Market Hall was booked to present the work to Public Energy’s first live audience in a year, while we also made plans to switch to a fully online presentation if public health indicators did not keep trending in a positive direction.
Two weeks before the performance it became clear that the COVID risk was too high and the show would have to be delivered via the now ubiquitous online platform Zoom. Luckily for us, we had a talented stage manager, Eryn Lidster, who was up to the challenge of coordinating the actor’s appearance on screen with the demands of a script which called for audience participation. (Eryn was allowed to read the script in advance.) And we had talented production personnel experienced in live streaming, Stephen Rose and Michael Morritt, to seamlessly deliver the event.
Of course the star of the show was the actor who carries the entire production. We feel very lucky that Peterborough native Beau Dixon accepted our invitation to do the part. He rose to the occasion by creating a character both likeable and threatening, engaging with participants online and, when confronted with the sudden demand that he move about the stage in imitation of an ostrich, did just that, script in hand. The result was an unforgettable theatre experience for everyone who took part and the 200 viewers from around the world.
-Bill Kimball
