Theater Review: “Nassim” — Word Play
By Robert Israel
The script is an experiment, a (sometimes) witty lecture on language. But it doesn’t work dramatically.
Nassim, a play by Nassim Soleimanpour. Directed by Omar Elerian. Presented by the Huntington Theatre Company, Calderwood Pavilion, Boston Center for the Arts, 527 Tremont St., Boston, MA, through Oct. 27.
Nassim Soleimanpour is an Iranian expatriate now living in Germany who travels internationally to present his work. His family lives in the Islamic Republic of Iran. We refer to Iran these days as “Iran and its proxies,” meaning Iran’s association with, and funding of, war-mongering groups such as Hamas that form the Islamic Resistance Movement. Iran has been accused of supporting these terrorist groups in their unrelenting attacks against Israel and the United States.
But that not-so-far-away war, televised nightly, is not what the “play” Nassim is about. I put the word “play” is quotes because I really don’t think what we have on stage at the Calderwood is the work of a playwright. It’s an experiment, a (sometimes) witty lecture on language. It doesn’t work dramatically.
There are references to the unrest Iranians like Nassim and his family have experienced (past tense), but the “play” avoids mentioning the political unrest (present tense). Instead, it takes us on a nostalgic voyage to Neverland, a backward glance at Nassim’s tale of a mother and son told in flash cards (actually projected sheets of paper on a large screen at the rear of the stage). We learn about how a child comes to speak Farsi, his native tongue, about the family’s balcony, about eating tomatoes, about a toy bear the child clings to for company, about the need to universally connect, via translation, to real human emotions. The sheets, scribbled on offstage (and later onstage) by Nassim himself, are meant to engage us, so, we, too, can see how Farsi can be understood by our English-speaking minds.
Only no connection is made, not even with the help of guest performers who are drawn from all corners of Boston VIP-dom. The night I attended the guest was the stage/screen actress Karen MacDonald, well-known to Boston audiences.
Boston has always seemed to me to be eager to shed its New England provincialism through the guidance of VIPs. The presence of notables makes the trip so … comfortable. Years ago our two major daily newspapers assigned reporters to the gossip pages. The Boston Herald had “The Eye,” and the Boston Globe had “Names and Faces.” (Cost reductions at both papers eliminated those columns long ago). Morsels of claptrap often found their way to the front pages, especially when the celebrities in the limelight (at the moment) committed salacious acts. The inclusion of VIPs here is mere window dressing. A theatergoer might scan the list of luminaries in the queue and purchase a ticket to see said “star” during a preferred performance. But the truth is, the “play” itself doesn’t make good dramatic use of the celebrity at all. The selected godlings take orders from Nassim and do his bidding.
What’s missing here is an opportunity to tell what might have been an intriguing story fully. We get tidbits of possibility in Nassim’s recollection of his childhood, “once upon a time,” but that only goes so far. Nothing is developed. The majority of this self-conscious show focuses on the words, showing us how Farsi is written using a calligraphic pen and ink, how the language uses curse words, and how funny Farsi sometimes sounds. I envisaged that a better use for the production, which runs 85 minutes, would be at academic conferences, a way to to break the ice, to get people thinking about words and why they matter.
Instead of playing footsies with the star-studded guest list, Nassim would have been wiser to take the time to develop some sort of narrative. That might have pulled the viewer in more effectively, using the stage as a means to understand the turmoil in his homeland, even if he wishes to play it safe, avoiding all political references to the current mayhem and terror and consequent destruction reducing the Middle East to rubble.
Huntington Theatre Company publicists refer to the play as “touchingly autobiographical yet powerfully universal.” If that is Nassim’s intention, he misses the mark. A “universal” connection, one that plumbs the depths of human emotion, isn’t built on a gimmick.
Robert Israel, an Arts Fuse contributor since 2013, can be reached at risrael_97@yahoo.com.
Thank you for this very honest and interesting review! Most of the rest of the local critics didn’t have the courage to write what you wrote. Bravo.
Couldn’t agree more. Indeed, I wrote that a clever gimmick does not make a play in responding to the Huntington’s request for feedback.
Thank you for your excellent review. I just saw the show yesterday, but didn’t know how to express my reaction. I enjoyed it to a point. But it was like eating a sweet meal of empty calories – I was still hungry. I appreciate your insight!
Kind regards,
Angel Micarelli