Nassim NYC Reviews and Tickets

“Soleimanpour first came to NY a couple of years ago with ‘White Rabbit Red Rabbit’...There’s some similar back patting in ‘Nassim,’ but this work is smaller and gentler and a lot more moving for it...Yes, ‘Nassim’ is manipulative. And no, it doesn’t quite play fair. But this time, Soleimanpour is threatening the actors with friendship, not death...A play about displacement...His new play speaks, at times eloquently, of trying to live and work in a place and with a language not your own.”
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"To some degree, the tenor of the show will depend on the guest actor you see...And I imagine there will be a somewhat larkish aspect to all of the guest performances, since the actors have signed up for a one-night stand. Soleimanpour’s dark sadness, on the other hand, is there every time. The show can be sweet, sometimes almost too sweet, but it’s like the sugar cube in the tea. In the moment that the cute part dissolves, you taste the bitterness beneath."
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"Uneven, but at its best the evening is as exhilarating for the audience as it surely must be for the guest performers...'Nassim' is perhaps too slight; it runs 75 minutes and feels insubstantial. There's also an inevitable gimmicky aspect to the proceedings that sometimes crosses over into cutesiness. But the piece...is touching and funny. It also proves relatable despite its very personal aspects."
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"Warm and inviting...Most of the audience-participation gambits are in keeping with the creator's broader aim to foster a dialogue between two different languages and cultures. It's that ultimate goal...that gives 'Nassim' a poignancy that goes beyond the pleasantly playful surface...It's possible to find Soleimanpour's idealism overly sentimental...Still, maybe a dash of utopianism...has its place in a time as dispiritingly divisive as the one we're in right now."
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"The play is rather thin, and it becomes somewhat treacly as the playwright talks mawkishly about 'new friends'...As an autobiographical play, we learn very little about the subject's life and work. Along the way, though, the play offers a number of surprises...Most interestingly, the play hints at the limits of communication and overcoming obstacles in translation...If 'Nassim' lacks the dark undertones of 'White Rabbit Red Rabbit,' there is a sense of aching longing just under the surface."
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"Directed by Omar Elerian, who staged the world premiere at London's Bush Theatre, even at 75 minutes the play seems a bit on the light side as not a great deal happens though different performers may react differently with different audiences and its charm may not work on all theatergoers. Nevertheless, 'Nassim' is a unique evening in the theater for those who give themselves up to the experience."
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“Soleimanpour's play demands that an actor have a quick wit, and the ability to be totally in the moment no matter what transpires on stage...’Nassim’ largely relies on a guest actor's voice to project authority and shape the meaning of the work...Soleimanpour has tucked some curve balls into his script. The play has two acts and is essentially a brief history of the playwright's life...Whereas the whole performance is entertaining...the conceit wears a bit thin.”
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"Few people in the world truly understand the powers and perils of language - to connect, to divide, to speak love, spew hate, make us laugh, produce tears - than a playwright. And few playwrights have the same depth of understanding as Nassim Soleimanpour, an Iranian author who has never seen one of his works performed in his own country or in his native language, Farsi. Well, until now."
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