Weißes Kaninchen, rotes Kaninchen

In the organizer's words:

The world's most famous theater experiment.

No direction. No rehearsals. The actor sees the text for the first time on stage and reads it live in front of the audience. After that, he is never allowed to perform the play again.

A journey that begins in Iran

Behind this unusual concept is the moving story of Iranian author Nassim Soleimanpour. Because he refused to do military service, his passport was revoked and he was not allowed to leave Iran.

In his isolation, he put his faith in the transformative power of theater and wrote a play that would travel around the world in his place. His plan worked, because since its premiere in 2011, the work has been performed in 50 countries, translated into 30 languages and performed over 3,000 times.

Today it is one of the most frequently performed and most exciting theater experiments. Well-known personalities such as Whoopi Goldberg and Christoph Maria Herbst have already dared to try this experiment. Sandra Hüller also recently took on this exciting challenge in Halle.

What can we reveal?

Theater usually requires weeks of rehearsals, an ensemble and a director. But what happens when all of this is strictly forbidden?
We would love to tell you what the play is about or how the preparations are going, but we are simply not allowed to. The author Nassim Soleimanpour has laid down clear rules: absolute silence about the content, no direction and, above all, not a single rehearsal.

For all of us, this means jumping in at the deep end. Because we have just as little idea what will happen as you do.

The evening is neither improvisational theater nor a classic reading, but a so-called cold read, paired with the pure desire for alternative, raw theater.
The experiment begins at the exact moment when actor Mohammad-Ali Behboudi opens the sealed manuscript live on stage and reads the text to the audience for the very first time.

"White Rabbit, Red Rabbit" combines entertainment with psychological experiment and political parable. It is a clever, humorous and personal work about power, manipulation and obedience.

Make sure you get your tickets, because this evening will not be repeated. After the performance, Behboudi will never be allowed to perform this work again.

On June 10, we will engage with this manuscript and look forward to Behboudi's completely unfiltered reaction to these strange words and the unpredictable dynamic that develops in real time between him, the text and us in the hall.

Further information: https://theatercolonia.de/weisseskaninchenroteskaninchen/

Or on instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theatercolonia/

The performance is a cooperation between Theater Colonia and the Iranian Film Festival Cologne "Visions of Iran"