Blank

I’m sitting in front of about 20 people. Next to me, someone is reading from a script they’ve never seen before that day. "When you were a child, your favourite toy was..." they ask. My mind is suddenly as blank as the gap left on the page for my answer. But then: "My Little Pony," I blurt out. And it’s true.

Iranian playwright Nassim Soleimanpour doesn’t work with scripts, directors or rehearsals. The powerful and unsettling White Rabbit Red Rabbit delved into the power relationship between writer and audience, exploring what keeps us in our seats. Blank—like that play—also rotates its performer each day. But this is a piece about storytelling.

There are blanks left for personal details as revealing as the performer wants them to be. And, halfway through, the performer (via the script) invites a ‘character’ on stage, from the audience (in this case, me). Their answers become part of a narrative shared (and often prompted) by everyone in the room. Sometimes, this feels invasive; at other times, like a communal experience.

There’s a spellbinding quality, which comes with a show that unfolds differently with each answer. Writing us into a play like this is a potent way of exploring how we shape the stories of our lives, the things we want to project about ourselves and how we strive to fill the uncertain times with meaning. It’s simultaneously wistful, sad, clichéd and ridiculous.

If White Rabbit Red Rabbit felt like a challenge, Blank is an embracing, generous experience, if lacking some of that show's edge.