Nassim
Written and performed by Nassim Soleimanpour
with guest actor Thom Sesma
Directed by Omar Elerian
New York City Center Stage II
January 2, 2019
Production website
💉💉 out of 5

Man did I want to like this play – because I adore Performance Art.  A week at the Fringe Festival in Edinburgh, Scotland is my idea of theatre heaven!  But tonight it was Nassim at NY City Center Theatre.  Nassim Soleimanpour is an actual playwright from Iran known here in the US for his big hit White Rabbit Red Rabbit – a play that Nassim, himself was never able to see in America as he was having trouble leaving his country and coming to the US.

But he is out of Iran now and is currently a citizen of Germany and here in NYC with his latest work named simply Nassim.  I wanted to like Nassim, but I just couldn’t get myself engaged.  The conceit of he play is a clever one .  Each night a known theatre artist is invited to join him on stage with no sense of what his/her function in the story telling is – – the night I say Nassim, Thom Sesma, recently having played Sweeney Todd for Barrow Street Theatre, was the guest actor.  

Act 1 of the show has Nassim offstage merely commanding the actor what to say and do through a series of flash cards that he is projecting live from offstage.  In Act 2 of the show, Nassim joins the actor on stage.  Essentially Nassim teaches the actor and the audience a lesson in language and the complexity of understanding his native language, Farsi.  We learn how to pronounce a few words – and even audience members are brought on stage to recite a sentence or two.  

Clearly he is wanting to show us how language can bring people together.  To understand Farsi is to know Nassim.  He tells us a bit about his home in Iran and even shows pictures of his home and his family – so does the celebrity actor.  

Okay I get it – it is nice to share.  We can learn from each other.  We are more alike than guessed – but that’s it.  I wanted for some potent gut punch or emotional reveal at the end – but nothing.  He did end the play with a live call to his mother in Iran (5am her time) and the guest actor did his best to recite a very short story to her in Farsi.  Hassim was genuinely moved by the story, but I just felt sad that she had to get up at 5am for a story that must be phoned into her every night.  

Nassim was simple and charming and sweet and novel, but a satisfying theatrical meal it was not.