Electric Company Theatre's 'White Rabbit Red Rabbit' Surprises with its Unrehearsed Spontaneity

Feb 144 min read

REVIEW: With a new actor performing every night, each show sparks with hesitations, discomforts and vulnerabilities.

Every night, a new actor reads "White Rabbit Red Rabbit" at the Muckenthaler Cultural Center. Company actors from the Electric Company Theater participating in this experience include, clockwise from top left, Callie Prendiville Johnson, Walt Gray IV, Kyle Hayes, Shayanne Marin, Jose Orozco and Bobby Gonzalez. Photos courtesy of Electric Company Theatre

The play is called “White Rabbit Red Rabbit,” rabbits are prominently mentioned, and it is probably unlike any play you have ever encountered. But before diving into what makes it so original, let’s address the possible elephant in the room:

Does this play feel groundbreaking because it is a one-person performance where the actor knows nothing about it until they are handed the script onstage? Or is it simply unusual because most plays are rehearsed, directed and rely on sets, costumes and lighting – elements this play deliberately omits? Maybe in this context, being different isn’t about expression or identity, but about the fact that no self-respecting theater would dare produce a play without these conventions – since no self-respecting theater-goer would want to see it.

If that’s true, why were returning audience members spotted on the second and third nights of the Electric Company Theatre’s 12-night run at Fullerton’s Muckenthaler Cultural Center, which began Monday?

And if an actor reading cold from a script supposedly hinders their ability to convey emotion and believability, how do you explain the deep engagement and vulnerability expressed by audience members during the 15-minute post-show discussions? Some connected it to contemporary geopolitics, others to the legacy of American slavery. Some saw it as a critique of conformity, others as a meditation on mortality. Everyone had a different experience, but all were profoundly affected.

And if plays without production values, characters or conventional plots typically don’t work, how do you explain that since its 2011 debut at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, “White Rabbit Red Rabbit” has been translated into 30 languages and staged more than 3,000 times?

And perhaps the most perplexing question of all: How do you write about a play designed to resist explanation?

No Spoilers

That one took a while to answer, but once the choice presented itself, it was liberating; you don’t write about the play – at least, not in the conventional sense. You can’t, because it isn’t a play in the way we usually define one. It’s a mystery that must be experienced.

Instead of a scripted performance with a predictable flow, Iranian playwright Nassim Soleimanpour’s “White Rabbit Red Rabbit” relies on discovery, spontaneity and risk. The actor is just as unprepared as the audience, and that shared uncertainty fuels an unpredictable, immediate energy. It’s not about following a plot – it’s about experiencing vulnerability, surprise, and the thrill of the unknown.

That experience begins before the first line is even read. The actor, handed the script for the first time in front of the audience, is as clueless as first-time viewers are about what will happen. This absence of preparation creates a sense of urgency, vulnerability and unpredictability that is rare in theater. The actor’s unfamiliarity with the script mirrors the audience's uncertainty about what to expect. The only thing anyone knows is that the play is about to unfold in a way unlike any other.

That doesn’t mean the play lacks big ideas or themes. Among them: the conflict between conformity and individuality, spectatorship and complicity, censorship and silence, and the unpredictability of life itself.

The play subverts traditional theater, challenging audiences to reconsider what it means to perform, to create and to be complicit in what unfolds. It digs into topics of power and control, calling out the dangers of passivity and obedience. One of the most striking moments in a play that is both disarmingly funny and horrifically brutal is when it suggests that inaction can be worse than oppression, a direct challenge to the idea that neutrality exists at all.

It also undermines the power of performance itself. By stripping actors of their usual tools – familiarity with the script and rehearsal – the play forces them into an experiment in pure presence. They are reduced to vessels for the playwright’s vision, puppets of the script itself.

And yet, the actor is essential, providing the presence, vulnerability and willingness to surrender to the unknown that defines the play’s impact. Unlike traditional theater, where actors shape their roles through rehearsal, “Rabbit” turns them into conduits for the playwright’s words in real time. Their reactions – hesitations, surprises, discomforts – become part of the experience, making each performance unique. The lack of preparation forces authenticity – there’s no acting in the traditional sense, just raw, instinctive response.

The actor’s importance isn’t in how well each performs, it’s how each experiences the play. That shared vulnerability is also what makes the play so electrifying, an apt term considering it’s the most highly charged play in the Electric Theatre Company’s five years.