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That is the singular strategy adopted by Iranian playwright Nassim Soleimanpour. In “Nassim,” produced by Barrow Street Theatricals, a different actor bounds onstage every night to open an envelope stashed inside a banker’s box. The actor doesn’t know what the envelope contains, but I’ll give it away: It’s the first page of the script, which will eventually unite Soleimanpour and the actor (some early volunteers include Michael Urie, Michael Shannon, Tracy Letts and Cush Jumbo) in an affectionate double act. Soleimanpour, who begins his role offstage, is the silent partner.
On the night I attended, Broadway actress Linda Emond (“Cabaret,” “Death of a Salesman”), agreeable and plucky, opened that box. She read the script out loud — its pages are projected onto a large screen so that the audience can follow along — and obeyed its stage directions. When prompted, she told some stories. She learned some Farsi. She shared her favorite curse word, “slutty.” (Does Emond understand how curse words work?) Occasionally, she ate a cherry tomato.
Soleimanpour’s theatrical style first came to New York a couple of years ago with “White Rabbit Red Rabbit,” a play that shares this cold-read conceit. An allegory about authoritarianism, it eventually asks the invited actor to drink from a possibly poisoned goblet. Let’s lean on that “possibly”: Even if you suspend your disbelief from some very sturdy rigging, the likelihood that Soleimanpour will actually kill off a cluster of Tony nominees seems slim, which gives the play a deceitful, self-congratulatory vibe.
There’s some similar back patting in “Nassim,” which is directed by Omar Elerian, but this work is smaller and gentler and a lot more moving for it. Yes, “Nassim” is manipulative. (At one point, Soleimanpour extorts — by refusing to move on — gifts from audience members. At my performance: a baseball, a MetroCard, a cigarette, some yuan.) And no, it doesn’t quite play fair. But this time, Soleimanpour is threatening the actors with friendship, not death, and Emond, at least, seemed very happy to cave. When, as the script demanded, she announced herself, in Farsi, as Soleimanpour’s friend, she looked moved to tears. Also, the playwright offers some very good typographical jokes, including an eye chart that begins “THE MEANING OF LIFE IS,” followed by words too small to read.
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Like “The Jungle,” at St. Ann’s Warehouse, and “Noura,” at Playwrights Horizons, “Nassim” is a play about displacement. Soleimanpour, now based in Berlin, probably isn’t as alone or friendless in New York as he suggests. (“White Rabbit Red Rabbit” had a long run — which indicates popularity — and no one seems to have died performing it.) But his new play speaks, at times eloquently, of trying to live and work in a place and with a language not your own. Someone invite the guy out for a drink, already.
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Event Information:
“Nassim”
Through April 20 at City Center Stage II, Manhattan; 212-581-1212, barrowstreettheatre.com.
Running time: 1 hour 20 minutes.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.