It’s generally not a good sign for an actor when the first night of performance is also the last.
But that’s the conceit behind “Nassim,” a charming play running Off Broadway, in which a different actor each night performs, without rehearsal, a script written by Nassim Soleimanpour, an Iranian playwright living in Germany. At each show the game performer and the droll playwright forge a relationship of sorts, navigating barriers of language and life experience before a live audience.
The conceit behind these New York Times “exit interviews” is that artists can talk about what they experienced, and what they learned, as a run comes to a close. But we decided in this case to bend the structure, just as the play does, to reflect the experience of an actor who exits a play after just 75 minutes.
Tracy Letts is an enormously accomplished performer and writer — a longtime member of the Steppenwolf Theater Company ensemble in Chicago, in 2008 he won a Pulitzer Prize and a Tony Award as the author of “August: Osage County,” and in 2013 he won a Tony Award as an actor in a revival of “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” He has also written for, and performed on, television (“Homeland,” “Divorce”) and film (“Lady Bird”).
Mr. Letts lives in Chicago but is in New York for a Broadway revival of “All My Sons,” in which he’ll star opposite Annette Bening. He performed in “Nassim” at the request of one of its producers, Scott Morfee, who has also presented plays which Mr. Letts has written (“Bug”) and acted in (“Orson’s Shadow”).
He performed in “Nassim” on a Wednesday evening, showing up after an “All My Sons” rehearsal looking slightly disheveled and appearing bemused as he awaited instructions hidden in a box on a table on the stage at New York City Center. (The show continues there, with various performers, through April 20.) Edited excerpts from a conversation follow.
What were you expecting?
Nothing. I’ve done a lot of improv; I’ve worked with TJ and Dave; and I guess I had an expectation that I would be taken care of. I couldn’t imagine anybody was going to throw me on stage to humiliate me or let me flail, because that wouldn’t make for a very good show.
Did you get any instructions?
Stage management sent me a little note a few days before the show that told me what stage door to arrive at, and said when you read a question, feel free to answer it, and if a word is written in all caps, stress it. They did not tell me what to wear. They did tell me to take my cellphone with me, but to put it on airplane mode.
What were you thinking as the show unfolded?
I’m a weeper, and I did think to myself, somewhat early in the proceedings, that I might have to steel myself, because I don’t want to start crying. They told me later some performers do.
What about it made you think you could cry?
In the time we’re living in right now, most people I know walk around trying not to cry most of the time. And the show touches on a lot of things — storytelling, language, transcending borders, connection — and connection with anybody is moving.
Were you worried about what might go wrong?
Audiences in a circumstance like that are so generous, so accepting, that you can’t really screw anything up too bad, and they love it when you do. It’s no fun to go out there and mangle somebody else’s language — that’s embarrassing — but it’s built into the show, that interplay.
Did you learn anything as an actor or a writer?
The more I’ve done this work, both as an actor and as a writer, on camera or on stage, the more it just seems to boil down to listening. And things like “Nassim,” though they might be scary on the surface, they really hone that listening skill, which is essential for storytellers.
What would you tell people who wanted to know what “Nassim” is about?
Wouldn’t tell them. Part of the joy is discovering it.
What would you tell an actor who wanted to know whether to do it?
Absolutely, without hesitation. Not only because it’s a good skill-building thing, but it’s also just fun, and not something you do every day.
One thing I didn’t expect to learn is that your son has a stuffed animal named for the actor Santino Fontana.
Nassim asked to access my pictures, and I gave him a shot of my son, and then I did not know what the next picture over was, but it turned out it was a shot of his stuffed animals which I had taken to send to a friend. And yeah, this doll showed up. Neither my wife [the actress Carrie Coon] nor I know where this doll came from, but it’s a little man with curly hair, and we started referring to him as “Broadway’s Santino Fontana.” Haskell loves that thing.
