Nassim Review of Nassim, a play by Nassim Soleimanpour

 

Nassim

Review of Nassim, a play by Nassim Soleimanpour

At the Calderwood Pavilion of the Huntington Theatre through October 27, 2024

By Andy Hoffman

Nassim, currently playing at the Calderwood Pavilion and presented by the Huntington Theatre, defies all expectation of a theatrical experience. It features a new co-star every performance, and that co-star has not seen the script prior to the start of the show. As the play begins, we see the featured performer struggle to gain his or her footing as they attempt to act out a play about which they know almost nothing, cold-reading their lines projected on a screen behind them. The audience instantly sympathizes with the performer as the script they read pokes fun at stage conventions. On the night I saw the production, Armando Rivera, the Puerto Rico-born Co-Artistic Director of Teatro Chelsea gamely kept up with the process, even when the text on the screen appeared in Italics, as stage directions typically do. He boldly faced the challenge of talking to the audience while glancing back at the screen for his lines. A pair of hands sometimes appear with the lines, changing the words or forcing an emphasis the performer elides. About 20 minutes into the play, we learn that those hands belong to the playwright himself, Nassim Soleimanpour.

Soleimenpour has a fascinating story to tell in this autobiographical play. Born in Iran, Soleimenpour cannot produce his plays in his repressive home country. Living now in Berlin, the playwright feels always disoriented, writing in his native Farsi for audiences that will not understand him and then translating the script to perform elsewhere. As a result, NASSIM deals with language and the ways in which language both divides people and brings them together. Soleimanpour has gathered many languages on tour with his plays. He lives in Germany now, and seems largely fluent in English, though he speaks little. In the almost 500 performances of NASSIM, he has gathered words from around the world, which he shows the audience in the journal he keeps of words contributed by the audiences and defined by the performers. Through his “new best friend” – the performance’s special guest – Nassim and NASSIM reach a remarkable plateau of feeling and insight. And as you might expect, if you attend NASSIM, you might have the opportunity to learn some Farsi – onstage, in front of a supportive audience.

I would like to take this opportunity to praise Loretta Greco, the Huntington’s Artistic Director, who has shaken awake the somewhat staid old-guard company with a stunning and excellent line-up of inventive productions. And she has transformed the Boston theater scene not only through the Huntington Theatre’s annual schedule, but also through her policy of partnering with small theaters in the city, most particularly with African-American companies like the Front Porch Arts Collective. Under Greco, The Huntington will present Mfoniso Udofia’s multi-play cycle about a Nigerian American family. Efforts like this have opened up theater in the city, making it a truly a cultural institution for all of the region’s cultures. NASSIM carries this attitude forward with charm. Greco has the knack of staging shows that push the theatrical envelope while embracing the audience. Having sat through adventuresome but painful and destructive seasons at theaters elsewhere, I wish to give Greco unstinting praise for embracing the new without alienating traditional theater fans. It’s been a remarkable growth to watch. I hope the Huntington can keep Greco in Boston for a good long time.

NASSIM has an entertaining line-up of performers scheduled for its run, including Mfoniso Udofia, Tony Shalhoub, Jared Bowen, Keith Lockhart, and Imari Paris Jeffries. Every night will bring a different performance of the same play as these public figures and sometimes actors play with Nassim Soleimenpour’s script. Bringing in community leaders to perform makes NASSIM a bit of a gimmick, a gimmick that Soleimanpour used previously in his 2011 WHITE RABBIT RED RABBIT. But just because it’s a gimmick does not mean that it is easy to do or that it isn’t effective. My party left the theater feeling more connected to the world, and we can all use that feeling, however we acquire it.