Where does performance happen? What does it mean to be present in a space? Nassim Soleimanpour’s latest play, ECHO, digs at these questions. Using the convention of an actor who hasn’t read the script before performing live which Soleimanpour used with great success on White Rabbit, Yellow Rabbit, this play pushes that technique further. Not only is the actor contending with a script they haven’t seen, but with technology, projection, and more. This play asks big questions; about who we are, what ties us to a place or a memory, and importantly about what it means to move away from home and family, living as an immigrant in another culture divorced from your own but unable to separate yourself.
I won’t say more as to not steal the surprise — but suffice it to say that the images and questions this play ask have been looming over me since seeing it. That’s not easy.