Nassim

Play, Performance
by Nassim Soleimanpour
Directed by Omar Elerian
Huntington Theatre Company
October 4-27, 2024

With Jared Bowen (Guest performer for this performance)

'Portrait of a Dervish' (c. 1500) by Kamāl ud-Dīn Behzād — “Portrait of a Dervish” (c. 1500)
by Kamāl ud-Dīn Behzād
Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Art in Context

A very entertaining and cleverly conceived performance piece by an Iranian playwright living in Berlin, and featuring a different celebrity guest actor at each performance.

It would be difficult to give a full description of this delightful performance without giving away the store. Nonetheless, suffice it to say that the ground rules are these: the celebrity actor for the performance (in the one I saw it was television arts journalist Jared Bowen) has not seen the script, nor knows much at all about the rules of the game. They are instructed from the outset by a voice and a set of commands on a screen, and all proceeds from there. There is much joshing, innuendo, and fanciful turns from the heightened expectation and uncertainty about what is to come that lend the production a lightness and liveliness.

In large scope, the show is a language lesson in Farsi. The guest actor is given some Farsi phrases to repeat, and there is a lot of realistic expectation that those will be difficult for them to remember. As well, at a certain point, several audience members participate in the Farsi lessons, also with some considerable challenges, but also with a good deal of amusement.

As one might expect, there is a larger mission here, and it is conveyed with such subtlety and deftness that the poignancy and the power of the performance is not really experienced until the very end when much is revealed. Though there are revelations of various sorts that come throughout the performance, the largest one pulled off at the end signifies what underlies what is a fairly simple narrative about language learning.

This simplicity combined with a good deal of wit and humor, and with the power of the connections made at the very end of the show make this performance a delight, and, as well, something that carries significant weight.

Jared Bowen, the guest actor for the evening, was humble but composed and vividly conveyed the excitement of the unknown along with an adept stage presence. At the outset he said he was terrified, but soon it became clear that he would be given instructions. He followed them well and with aplomb.

Extra info: contains spoilers

It’s not apparent from the beginning that the playwright Nassim Soleimanpour will become a significant part of the action. At first, he directs the guest actor from backstage via the projected screen, but one does not realize at first that there is a live person controlling the projections. Gradually, it becomes apparent that somebody is annotating the screen depending on what the actor and the audience say. Finally, it becomes clear that the person controlling and animating the screen is the playwright. All artfully done and developed, this sequence of revelations is endlessly entertaining. Though the entire narrative of the play is an interleaving of these kinds of revelations and the language lessons in Farsi, there is considerable wit and improvisation throughout on the part of the playwright. The kicker at the end is that Soleimanpour, who has taught the audience the Farsi word for mother, actually calls his mother in Iran in real time and engages the actor and the audience in a small dialogue in Farsi with her. Clearly, the playwright’s distance from his mother under the political circumstances that prevail represents the major drama behind this light and engaging play of impressions. That realization, in the midst of the lightness and humor, gives this entertaining show the gravitas which lies beneath it and conveys it cleverly and adeptly.

Overall: Well worth seeing. It is quite short – about 75 minutes – but very satisfying overall.

– BADMan (aka Charles Munitz)

Reader Interactions

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