I need to be careful about what I write. White Rabbit Red Rabbit is as live as theatre gets, and an important part of what it seeks to achieve is inviting each person in the audience to examine their willingness to participate in theatre’s make-believe. Knowing anything in advance could diminish that experience. Besides, if the actor is discovering the play for the first time on stage, perhaps the audience should be too.

“Each performance begins with an envelope. Inside is a script the actor has never seen, which they must perform without rehearsal or a director.” Unable to leave Iran in 2010, Nassim Soleimanpour attempts to remote-control the actor through the script itself.

This production was announced in mid-April, around six weeks into the current conflict with Iran, which lent the piece an added poignancy. Even so, the premise sounded worryingly similar to An Oak Tree, enough that I had been inclined to give it a miss.

But when I discovered that you could book for a specific performer, I realised it was an opportunity to see Kathryn Hunter again. I had seen her step in as Tiger in Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo, a replacement so last minute that she was reading from a teleprompter which I had not even noticed till it was pointed out to me. She was magnificent. If anyone could make this format work, I thought, she could.

Nonetheless, I am not sure if I would recommend White Rabbit Red Rabbit. Kathryn Hunter elevated the material but the play itself is uneven. Some of the ideas are clever and genuinely thought-provoking, yet there are also moments where it becomes too obviously didactic and overwritten. The take on G.R. Stephenson’s 1967 rhesus monkey study is simply too laboured.

Some people argue that you need to see the show at least twice to appreciate how different actors shape and colour the material. I am not sure I would want to do that. Having now seen the performance, and read more about Hunter’s background, especially in physical theatre, I find it hard to imagine anyone better suited to the role. It felt as though Hunter shook off the shackles of the format and became more than simply a mouthpiece for Soleimanpour. She brought herself into the story in a way that felt defiant. I think he would have liked that. A play about obedience, resistance and control ultimately became more poignant when the performer stood up to its author.