White Rabbit Red Rabbit: Impromtu Theatre At Royal Croquet Club – Adelaide Fringe Review

Royal Croquet Club’s The Rastelli, Tue Feb 24 In one sense it seems unfair to review this show. Reviews comment on how well a play is acted, directed, sung, staged… based on what decisions were made, and practiced, in rehearsal. In this case, where the actor has not seen the play before the event you are reviewing the play as a dramatic text, rather than a production; a play reading, not a performance. There is a performance of sorts but it is all impromptu – devised on the spot – with the help of the audience. So whatever one says about tonight’s performance may not apply to tomorrow’s. It will to some extent depend on the actor and what kind of audience show up. And tomorrow night, and the next, will involve a completely new group of people with a different dynamic. So it may be better. Or worse. All you can be sure of is that it will be different. I love the idea of this – that a play could have a life of its own beyond the author’s world and travel around the planet for years hence. White Rabbit Red Rabbit is essentially a letter to us; we who represent a future and a world outside Iran. It does have the effect of knitting the audience together to support the actor, but one’s appreciation of this event depends on how much you are moved by the moral fable and the dilemma presented. For the record, our actor for the night, Amber, did a good job of reading and choreographing audience participation. Could she have done better and made the moral dilemma more gripping? I suspect so. Michael Coghlan White Rabbit Red Rabbit continues at Royal Croquet Club’s The Rastelli until Sun Mar 15. Book at FringeTIX on 1300 621 255 or adelaidefringe.com.au/fringetix. Click HERE to purchase your tickets.