Martial theme in Iran monologue

The Australian

"MOST of the time I'm really lazy," says Nassim Soleimanpour. That is one of the reasons why the Iranian playwright put off doing compulsory military service for as long as he could. The other reason is more creative: he would much rather be writing plays, an activity that is near impossible without time and privacy.

Soleimanpour deferred military service to attend university, but when he graduated at 26, he couldn't put it off any longer. Already late for his deadline, he trotted off to undergo the health check required for enrolment. He was accompanied by his brother, who had refused military service because "it takes two years of your life". The woman at the health desk asked Soleimanpour for a document he hadn't brought, and there wasn't enough time to fetch it before her office closed.

"Me and my brother stared at each other and then we smiled," Soleimanpour says. "Then he said: 'F . . k it. Don't go and do military service.' " The words must have struck a chord with Soleimanpour, because he decided to follow his brother's advice.
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With this snap decision, he became a conscientious objector, and was unable to leave Iran for the next four years because he could not obtain a passport without completing military service. Making the most of the situation, he decided to write a play about his predicament that could be performed where he could not travel.

"I was angry with my government but I knew the rules," Soleimanpour says. "This is what I do:

I mostly break the lines of obedience."

His play, White Rabbit, Red Rabbit, has no director and no set. Every show features a new performer who is handed the script at the venue and reads it out to the audience, without any rehearsal.

This bare-bones approach has made the work easy to tour and Rabbit has been performed in 10 languages in North America and Europe since its 2011 premiere

at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

Soleimanpour was finally granted a passport after his military service obligation was waived because of a health condition, and looks forward to watching his play live for the first time at the World Theatre Festival in the Brisbane Powerhouse next month. The Australian premiere will be a surreal experience for the writer, who has thus far seen the play only on film.

"The thing about Rabbit is you are watching the play and being manipulated by an author in another country," Soleimanpour says, speaking on the phone from Tehran. "The play is trying to redefine these red lines in theatre and our ordinary lives."

The play toys with the definition of monologue by channelling different voices. Soleimanpour communicates directly with the performer in parts of the script by asking them to carry out tasks such as counting the audience. He also talks to the audience through the performer, who at one point says, "I'm Nassim Soleimanpour".

Born in Tehran, Soleimanpour, 31, grew up during the Iran-Iraq war. His father was a novelist and Soleimanpour went on to study drama at university. Asked what the political environment was like when he was growing up, he hesitates.

"The most frank thing is I have to tell you I don't know," he says. "When you are in the middle of changes, it's hard to recognise what's going on . . . I'd rather not talk about it directly."

The phone line cuts out and we are put on hold with jazz music. Soleimanpour's attention has shifted by the time the connection is re-established a few moments later. "Have you heard this music when they put somebody on hold? It's really beautiful," he says.

In the World Theatre Festival publicity materials, Rabbit is billed as an "utterly original play that dissects the reality of a whole generation of Iranians", but the author insists the play is not about the politics in his country.

"People love to (say) I wrote a play about Iran, which is not true," he says. "The play is being performed in different countries and not my own country.

"The play is not about a political situation in Iran. It is political but it is more general."

Even if Rabbit is a play about the "politics in our own families" and the "behaviours of human beings", one has to wonder, if it truly lacks a political flavour, why it hasn't been performed in Iran. Soleimanpour says he hasn't had time to carefully translate the play into his mother tongue, Persian. Besides, permission to stage the play would be required from the government-run Dramatic Arts Centre of Iran, which supervises theatre in the country.

"Nobody is happy about it, but this is the structure of doing theatre in Iran," he says. "I'm not going to go to the performing arts centre and ask them to read the play that has been performed all around the world and hear this 'no' because of the context of the play."

Rabbit is one of several politically charged plays in the World Theatre Festival. Ireland's Pan Pan Theatre is bringing Henrik Ibsen's A Doll House, which was controversial when it premiered in 1879 for questioning the traditional roles of women. Melbourne's MKA Theatre of New Writing is presenting The Economist, which draws on the diaries of mass murderer Anders Breivik, who killed 77 people in gun and bomb attacks in Norway in 2011.

Andrew Ross, until recently the artistic director of the Brisbane Powerhouse, says Parah, by Kuala Lumpur-based Instant Cafe Theatre, caused a stir when it premiered in Malaysia because it explores the country's knotty race issues.

He expects the "theatre of dissent" to be a hit with Queenslanders. "People want to feel confident they can express dissenting views," Ross says. "Certainly in the 1980s there was a period in Queensland when there was a lot of pressure not to dissent."

Australian comedian Justin Hamilton, ABC radio presenter Richard Fidler and actor Lucas Stibbard will perform Rabbit at the World Theatre Festival. And actors Magda Szubanski, Alison Bell and Bert LaBonte will be among the cast when Rabbit arrives at Melbourne's Malthouse Theatre in July.

If his visa arrangements go to plan, Soleimanpour will attend the performance of his play and discuss it at the World Theatre Festival. After his wife urged him to follow through with the health check, Soleimanpour was granted a passport in December 2011.

"It (so happened) that I had an eye disorder in my left eye that invalidates me for military service," he says. "We were really happy to be released from it."

After making the discovery, he phoned his father to share the news. "My father said: 'F . . k, I had the same problem - why did I pass military service?' "

White Rabbit, Red Rabbit will be performed February 14-24 as part of the World Theatre Festival at Brisbane Powerhouse, and will run from July 23 to August 3 at Melbourne's Malthouse Theatre.