Photo: Marc Brenner
Writer: Eugène Ionesco
Translator and director: Omar Elerian
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Top marks for timing must be given to the Almeisa Theatre’s decision to hold the press performance of its revival of Rhinoceros on April Fools’ Day. Eugène Ionesco’s 1959 satire remains a classic piece of absurdism and, potentially, offers a feast for the fools in all of us. However, this is a play that parades itself as a folly and then asks to be taken seriously.
Romanian-born Ionesco thrived in a France that was still recovering from Nazi occupation, in which the literati of Paris had become infatuated with existentialism and absurdism. Breathing fresh life into a piece which, at first glance, seems horribly dated in style and content, presents a double challenge to Omar Elerian, who acts as both translator and director. By presenting his production as a play within a play, he invites modern viewers to see it with even more mocking eyes, assisted by a narrator (Paul Hunter), who also conducts audience participation.
The play’s central character is Berenger, played with an air of puzzlement and growing conviction by Sopé Dìrísù. He is a depressed alcoholic who drinks as a way to find reality. In a French provincial town, he sits at a roadside café, chatting idly with his friend Jean (Josh McGuire), when a rhinoceros charges past them. Did it have one horn or two and would that mean it was African or Asiatic? They decide that it would be racist to speculate. Berenger’s prospective girlfriend Daisy (Anoushka Lucas) appears, carrying a dead cat, trampled on by a herd of rampaging rhinos. What is happening?
The action shifts to Berenger’s workplace, an office bossed by a fluttering M Papillion (Alan Williams) and a dithering M Dudard (John Biddle). Workers are ‘phoning in sick and confusion begins to reign as it seems that all the townsfolk are growing horns and turning into rhinoceroses. But Berenger stands firm, vowing that he will never join them.
The production is given a surreal look by Ana Inės Jabares-Pita’s all white set and (except for Berenger) costume designs, which become progressively darker as the play moves on. Ionesco’s depiction of one individual standing resolutely against an overwhelming majority represents a them common in 1950s drams, reflecting the politics of that era, but, here, it is made to be taken as a warning against present day trends in which populist movements appear to be gaining ground across Europe and elsewhere. Maybe the messages are put across crudely, but they are, nonetheless, effective.
Elerian takes as much licence as is needed to bring Ionesco’s preposterous pachyderm parable up to date and keeps his production fizzing with consistently inventive staging and impeccably timed ensemble playing. Yes, the translator/director succeeds in making this old play feel relevant to the modern world, but, far more importantly, he succeeds in making it fun.
Performance date: 1 April 2025
The Beast's Pen 