Dear Mr Nassim Soleimanpour,
May I call you Nassim? After all, we have shared a journey that transcended space and time.
I am one of your red rabbits. I took notes as instructed, along with few others, the evening we met.
I believe by knowing your email address and writing this letter, I have established my credentials (as a red rabbit). But I will go further than that. I will recite your personal information:
Based on Gregorian calendar, you were born on [redacted] (I did not catch the Islamic calendar date, sorry). I forgot whether your eyes are green or blue. But I do remember that you are hairy. Your blood type is [redacted].
You wrote the script, the medium of our meeting, on [redacted] in Shiraz. You were unable to travel abroad because you refused to serve in the national service therefore denied of the rights to hold Iranian passport.
Now, allow me to introduce myself.
My name is Suar Sanubari. I was born on [redacted]. I have brown skin, very little hair on my body—almost like a dolphin. My eyes and hairs are black. My blood type is also [redacted].
I am an Indonesian. I too am neither upset or proud with my nationality.
We met in Jakarta, at Teater Salihara, on Sunday, 26 August 2018 at 16:15 (GMT +7). Your medium, the actress, was Ms Sita Nursanti. You were speaking in Indonesian when we met. There were around 140 people (or rabbits, if you prefer) at that time. You were given front row seat, lesehan (sit on the floor, pillow seat provided).
I never heard about you or White Rabbit Red Rabbit until Saturday, 25 August 2018. A friend posted the script’s performance on that day on her Instastory. It was her second time meeting you. The first time she met you was in Edinburgh Fringe Festival.
I checked Salihara’s website and googled about the script. The only information I got is that White Rabbit Red Rabbit is an experimental theatrics where the solo actor perform your script impromptu. The props are limited to a vial of substance, two glasses and a ladder. That caught my interests.
I also read that big names such as Whoopi Goldberg and Stephen Fry have become your medium. That’s when I know your low fidelity self-expressions have made you big.
It was or is—the tenses are confusing with time transcended, especially for Indonesian native speaker (Indonesian grammar structures are very simple: no tenses)—ingenious of you to devise a medium of thought as a mean to escape your constraints. Indonesia is the 50th country you have travelled to.
Since I plan to make this an open letter, I don’t want to deny your future audience’s the profound experience in meeting you for the first time (don’t worry, I will also redact our personal information for the public version).
I will only say this about your play:
Thank you for creating it, to meet us, rabbits, and stimulate our mind with your thoughts. Your art, your means of escapism, convinced me again that the longest way to die, i.e. to live a little longer is still the best way to die—the one you call the 18th way of suicide,.
Your 2010 self decided to create White Rabbit Red Rabbit to channel your frustration in life situation. To express your thoughts on politics, societal norms and nature of our existence. To break your mind from the constraints that was imposed on your physical body. You could have chosen not to bother, not to deal with the hardships of life. But you did not, you decided to endure and create.
I hope you find the freedom that your 2010 self was yearning in Berlin. I hope we all have the courage to choose the 18th way of suicide time and time again. We can spend the time we endured well, if we keep reminding ourselves that life is not constant. That life changes, for the better and the worse.
Every time I am in the worse part of life, I remind myself the transiency of the circumstances and look back to the better days that have been, such as watching—no, being with you at your play.
Thank you. Again.
Suar
Teater Salihara