Napier Repertory Players – BLANK

The concept might be simple; the result is nothing short of empowering as BLANK, Napier Repertory Players latest experimental production, celebrates the communal and elusive nature of theatre.

Developed by Nassim Soleimanpour, this is its New Zealand premiere. Showing at The Little Theatre in McGrath Street, Napier it continues the formal experiment that marked last year’s White Rabbit, Red Rabbit.

This is a script riddled with blanks (hence the title) and it becomes a veritable story-telling machine, as each night a new performer collaborates with the audience to create an original story that is theirs alone – it’s a celebration of the human imagination with no rehearsal, no director, and no set. BLANK takes theatre to new extremes.

Far more than audience participation as most of us know it, with BLANK, the random audience member sees his or her future determined by the imagination of others.

Each night, Nassim’s play-full-of-blanks is to be completed by a new performer onstage before a live audience, as the audience members shout, laugh, gasp – and collaborate to write the evening’s story, a story that is irrevocably theirs and will never be told in the same way ever again. It sounds hilarious!