A dramatic reading where the audience can chip in

Satchit Puranik at a performance

You're seated in the audience, waiting for the play to begin. Except, there is no set. There is no director either. Nor has the piece been rehearsed before. Out walks a performer holding a sealed envelope. Inside that envelope is a script, one that the performer has never seen before. The script is riddled with blanks. Who has to help the performer fill in those blanks? You.

Come saturday, and this bizarre experience will unravel at the staging of BLANK at Prithvi Theatre. Presented by QTP and Aurora Nova, the script has been written by Iranian playwright Nassim Soleimanpour, and continues the social experiment format that marked his popular play, White Rabbit Red Rabbit, which was first staged in 2010.

Actors Tushar Pandey

Collaborative effort
BLANK premiered in November 2015 at the Dancing on the Edge festival, which is held in Amsterdam, and QTP brought it to India late last year.

Each staging of the play sees a new performer, and the two upcoming shows will see author Jerry Pinto and actor and TV show host Freishia Bomanbehram essay that important role on consecutive days.

Unlike in a traditional play, here, the audience takes control of how the story will unfold. "They share their stories and play a big role in writing the story of the night. In BLANK, the audience literally writes a new story every night," explains Soleimanpour.

Jerry Pinto

The playwright shares that the idea for BLANK emerged from the emails he'd received from those who had seen his previous work, which has been performed over 1,000 times so far. "I shared my email address with the audience in White Rabbit Red Rabbit. The play was on tour for half a dozen years and I had received gazillions of emails. I was so fascinated by the stories that people shared with me, so I thought I should make a story machine for them.

BLANK is the result of this fascination," he reveals.

Freishia Bomanbehram

It's all hush-hush
Are there any interesting stories that have come out of BLANK through its journey around the world? Soleimanpour is quick to react. "I can't tell you. That's the beauty of this game. If you're participating in a show, you're the only people who are privy to the story of that special show."

Bomanbehram is rightfully nervous. She says that although she understands how the format works, she has no idea how her performance will go on the day. "I have butterflies in my stomach just thinking about it. It can go one of two ways. Either it will crash and burn, or it will turn out great," she laughs.

Nassim Soleimanpour

A Hindi version of White Rabbit Red Rabbit was staged in Mumbai in November last year, an event which also marked Soleimanpour's maiden visit to the city.

Unfortunately, he won't be able to make it this time around.

"I'm having a busy month, since we're going to open a new show in a little over a month," says the playwright, who presently lives in Germany. The show, simply titled Nassim, is yet another theatrical experiment and will see Soleimanpour take the stage as a performer.