This Performance Runs on Curiosity: An interview with Nassim By Kevin Becerra

Kevin: Nassim, you’ve developed a very distinct style of theatre and theatre-making. How you would describe it? 

Nassim: It is just like what’s happening now. I did not rehearse my answers. You might have an idea what you want to ask, but I trusted you. And I’m reacting to the situation. So, in this scenario, you are the designer of the machine and I am the participant. You are the playwright, I am the actor and together we are making something. We are creating something for an audience; in this case, the reader of this interview. In Nassim we do the same thing on stage for the audience. It’s not an interview but it’s a machine which is designed by me and a team of creatives – it invites a new performer of any gender, any language, any ethnicity, any background and they take it on in front of a live audience. 

Kevin: What would you say fuels that machine? 

Nassim: Curiosity. Curiosity is the fuel for us as the makers. There are things that you can sit in your room and understand on your own and there are things that you need help to understand. You need a hive mind. A room full of smart people. That’s the curiosity for the creatives. But, why would someone volunteer to do such a show? We have these amazing performers with lots of great shows under their belts. It’s not about money, it’s about curiosity. They’re curious to experience something new. And the audience always comes in curious. So the fuel is curiosity. But the oil, which makes it run smoothly and work in the most efficient way is honesty.   

Kevin: Fueled by curiosity, oiled by honesty. I mean, that might just be the new tagline for the show. I love that. Has your approach to making these machines evolved over the years? 

Nassim: Oh, yes. Yes, it started with White Rabbit, Red Rabbit, an old play of mine which is still around after 14 years. It’s very simple. It doesn’t have any director, any design. It’s just 40 pages, a table, two glasses of water, and an optional ladder that producers can put on stage. It’s a piece that has been all around the globe. At the moment, it’s on the West End.  

Nassim came when I bumped into my now partner-in-crime Omar Elerian, who is very good at throwing good curveballs at me. He wanted me to write a play for him to direct. Me, known for plays without directors. But he knew that I’m someone who likes challenges. Omar asked me to write a cold read (which is what we call a reading by an actor who has never encountered the script before) that needed a director and it became Nassim. It is still small in size, we travel with just a suitcase, me and sometimes a stage manager. It has also been all around the globe and we’ve done nearly 500 shows now.  

Omar and I recently opened the last show in the roster of our work. I think the trilogy of my life is now complete. I opened ECHO at the Royal Court in July, and it’s a bigger show with lots of technology and directing and video design and sound design and music.   

All my shows are cold reads designed for different theatres and their different audiences, but with the same core concept. This concept presented in various forms results in different catches if you wish. You know, like when you go fishing, your intention is catching fish but sometimes you catch other things in the process. 

Kevin: What’s the variety of what you catch? 

Nassim: I’ve been doing cold reads for 15 years and like any other discipline, when the work meets other experts and other expertise you get different results. So, when we talk about my latest piece ECHO, for example, this is where technology intersects with conversations about sustainability and climate change. How can we tour bigger shows in a way that’s more friendly to the environment?  

Then the content also of course varies show to show. Some of them are very heartwarming. Some of them are very intense. Someone called White Rabbit, Red Rabbit a frozen scream in time. I’ve heard people call Nassim a machine to make new friends and some people say ECHO is a time machine. 

Kevin: A frozen scream in time. Good lord. 

Nassim: Yeah, someone said it, and I was like, oh, yeah, actually I agree. 

Kevin: I think this goes back to the curiosity and the honesty but I’ve been thinking a lot about the vulnerability that you ask of the guest. To publicly dive into something they know nothing about. Do you think that vulnerability impacts the audience? 

Nassim: It does! Normally when people come to watch a show, they already have the context to gauge whether they like the show. But in Nassim, the support is stronger. People root for the guest. They want them to succeed. They feel for them. As long as you’re honest, people will embrace you, lift you up, tap you on the back, and help you achieve – which is very beautiful. It somehow helps all of us in the room to unite. The atmosphere is very friendly. 

Another aspect is in the setup of the room—look at the proscenium stage. Now, there is a power dynamic when you are coming to a show. The actors have been practicing for weeks, sometimes years—they know what’s going to happen. In this format, suddenly we’re all in the same boat. There are even moments designed so that the audience encounters the script before the actor and the dynamic shifts. The actor becomes the audience and the actor is looking at everyone. Why are they laughing? That keeps people on their toes. The audience feels that they’re not ignored.  

You know, we have had enough of being held separate. I live in Berlin where there was a wall. You are in the middle of an election with a candidate who is very much interested in talking about walls. We don’t need an extra wall. Why would we separate the stage from the audience and say, “We’re up here, you’re down there.” We’re all in the room. And cold reading is a very good vehicle to celebrate that.  

Kevin: You wrote White Rabbit, Red Rabbit in a time when you were living in Iran and unable to travel, so it traveled for you. Now it has this huge star-studded run on the West End. How does that feel? 

Nassim: It feels good. British theatre has always been very, very kind to me. They always opened the first door. It’s already extended. It was supposed to be three weeks. It’s another three weeks. The most fun thing is that I’m not going to be there, neither for the opening, nor the end. I will be in Boston, which is very natural for how the show was designed.  

Kevin: Um, okay, final question. Why is your dog named Echo? 

Nassim: He picked his own name. I read a list of words to him to see which one she would react to because I thought that was very natural and reacted to Echo. 

Kevin: Okay, this is a beautiful ending because it’s exactly the machine you described. You gave him the words and he responded to them, and that’s how he found his name. 

Here is where the spoilers begin – proceed with care  

Kevin: To talk a little bit more about audience, thousands of people around the world have experienced the work. And I wonder if there are responses that you’ve witnessed firsthand or been told of about how the art lands with people. 

Nassim: Oh, God. I mean. Most of these shows are designed emotionally, like a roller coaster. You laugh a lot and then get surprised. Suddenly you hear this silence where you can hear a pin drop. And then an emotional ending. You get lots of tears in the auditorium afterwards, lots of hugs and things like that. And that’s universal. I’ve seen it in every language, wherever we go. I don’t know why, but theatres tend to say their audience is very distant. I’ve heard it in every country. And I can tell you that is not the case. I’ve been on a stage in Korea and an older lady walked to me, took off her earrings in the middle of the show, offered them to me, and asked me to take them to my mother in Iran. People are very kind. That’s the only reason that I keep peddling these shows because I feel I owe it to myself and to people, to meet and to sit together in the theatre. 

Yes. When I wrote White Rabbit, Red Rabbit, I was in Iran. I couldn’t travel. So, I came up with this format that the script is directing the actor, and we tour the concepts instead of touring the show. And it worked quite well 2011. In 2015, when I moved to Germany, Rabbit was still very much active. And I remember we had a production in Buenos Aires, and I wanted to go. The producers looked at the budget and they said they could not afford it. So I did not go to Buenos Aires. The idea of me being in the show was born because I wanted to physically go to these places. I say these shows are machines and part of that is I wanted a machine that carries me country to country. It’s a machine that allows me to spend time with these all these great performers and then afterwards sit with them during the show. We learn about them, about their family. They show us photos, they teach me their language. They tell me what the best restaurant in the city is. They teach me swear words. Even afterwards, I get to sit with the people and learn about what they do. Some of them are amazing pianists, politicians, weathermen! It’s become the set up for a kind of joke. What stupid designer designs a machine and gets trapped in his own machine? I’m not complaining, I’m trapped in a beautiful machine – traveling with it and meeting all these people and becoming friends with them.