ECHO (Every Cold-Hearted Oxygen) at the Royal Court – review

In 2010, Nassim Soleimanpour was stuck in Iran without a passport after having refused compulsory military service. So he decided to make hay and invented a new form of theatre, one that didn’t require his physical presence at all. Performed across the world, White Rabbit, Red Rabbit saw a different performer every night, each only given their script on stage, with no rehearsal, no director, and no staging.

What began as an artistic necessity has become a theatrical revelation. Where its first iteration placed Soleimanpour entirely off-stage, aside from his scriptural pulling of the strings, and all the way in Iran, his next experiment had him backstage but on screen in his eponymous Nassim. In ECHO (Every Cold-Hearted Oxygen), Soleimanpour is in his new home in Berlin, directing via live streaming on a massive screen for all the audience to see.

As with his previous works, each night has a new actor with no prior knowledge of the story and no preparation, besides being asked to bring a pair of white socks and black sliders. It’s an exciting and unprecedented task and so lots of big names are keen to get involved.

This particular performance sees Shakespeare specialist Adrian Lester apprehensively take to the stage. At times he is no more than another audience member: we watch him as he watches Soleimanpour tell his story. At others Soleimanpour’s story passes through him so briskly he’s merely a conduit. Lester has had no time to rehearse, to read through the script carefully and work out where a stress or a pause should be, barring the ones plainly spelled out for him. He truly has no idea where this story is going, and in that sense Soleimanpour has created the most true-to-life performance possible. As he later tells us through his medium, “life is a play, one that you only get to appear in once”.

We first encounter Soleimanpour in his Berlin studio. He’s excited to meet Lester and can’t help going off script (or so we’re led to believe), taking us to see his wife and dog in the adjoining rooms. This is all so charming and seemingly impromptu, and we’re entirely taken in. But what appears at first to be a live-stream – and to a large extent it must be, given his quick and honest responses to Lester – suddenly becomes a surreal nightmare. Walking through a familiar door in his flat, Soleimanpour – and now Lester, who must finally take his role – finds himself back in Iran, years prior, being grilled over his identification and intentions.

The story goes on like this, live conversations seamlessly spliced with time travel. Soleimanpour himself is incredibly endearing and funny, making the switches in tone even more stark. After our first visit into the past, we’re left wondering where he really is. Is he in his flat in Berlin? Is he even speaking live, or, given he wrote this script in 2022, does he have an inexplicable gift for pre-empting conversations years in advance? Is he a prophet or a ghost?

There are times when details get lost in long monologues – an actor and director will usually spend weeks working out the best way to keep an audience focused in long chunks of text. But we don’t have that luxury. Nonetheless, the point is made. The play’s blurb claims this is about the immigrant experience, but it seems more than anything to be about the tales of our lives, how telling our stories “connects us from a blurry past to a hopeful future.”

Given how economical Derek Richards’ design appears to be, it’s an immensely visual experience too. The screens take us to Berlin, Iran, Sweden, out into space and back again in time for the autumn leaves to swirl around Lester before winter settles. Anna Clock’s soundscape of quivering strings and a tinkling hi-hat transforms what is essentially Lester’s first and only run-through into a performance full of care and purpose.

It’s beautiful, funny, confusing and penetrating in equal measure, and while this kind of high concept theatre often threatens to become gimmicky, Soleimanpour’s work still surprises every time.

You can find the full schedule of guest performers here.