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Read about Adrian Lester’s performance in Mark Bibby Jackson’s Echo review at the Royal Court Theatre, a challenging and rewarding play.

Echo Review

There are times you feel you are in a ground-breaking event. The press night for Echo at the Royal Court theatre was one of those.

Echo is an ambitious new play by Iranian playwright Nassim Soleimanpour. Each night a new actor takes to the stage unrehearsed without knowing quite what to expect. On our night it was Adrian Lester who took up the challenge.

He stands on stage noticeably nervous, unsure what to expect, and you suspect wondering what on earth he has let himself in for. Before long the playwright appears on a screen in the centre of the stage, apparently on a feed from Berlin. I say apparently because throughout the following 80 minutes we are not quite sure what is real and what is not, what is planned and what is spontaneous.

The stage is sparse, simply a desk and a carpet, which Nassim says is his most valued possession. Nassim introduces Lester and us to his family and dog Echo, before the play for real starts, or has it already?

Lester reads from a prepared text. His beautiful voice flowing across the stage to us; his and Nassim’s audience. He noticeably relaxes as he enters into more familiar territory, reading his lines as if in a rehearsal.

But this is no rehearsal. Towards the end of the performance Nassim states that life is a play unrehearsed and performed but once. Art reflects life as life reflects art.

Nassim weaves together a beautiful plot just like the priceless carpet upon which Lester stands. The threads consist of a friendship bracelet, blue cardigan and the carpet itself, as we progress through the four seasons of Nassim’s life. It is a quite remarkable voyage.

At one stage Nassim states that he is a time-traveller rather than a playwright. Time is fluid in his world. The play commences with the words, “We are whispers from the past fading into the future,” written on a screen upon the stage. The transience of time is another theme pursued throughout the performance.

My total respect to Lester and the other performers who have taken up the gauntlet laid down by Nassim. The product is a beautifully crafted work of art which challenges our preconceptions and asks questions of the nature of life and what is our home. Ultimately the message is upbeat – we can complain about the lot that has befallen us in life, or we can live, really live. For just like Echo, life is unrehearsed and something we only get to play once.

Echo

Echo by Nassim Soleimanpour runs at the Royal Court Theatre until 27 July. For a full list of performances and performers, click here.