Rhinoceros at The New Stage

One of the seminal plays of the 20th century, blending the Theatre of the Absurd, existential drama, classical farce and burlesque, tells the story of people from a small town, perhaps in southern France, suddenly finding themselves in the clutches of Evil, which assumes the rather ridiculous semblance of a rhinoceros. One by one, all these good people turn into rhinoceroses and accept their fate with a dreadful passivity. Yet one among them defies. He is not able to accept that which all the others have, even though he is timid, weak and of nowise distinct character. He is anything but a hero, yet he resists the mass metamorphosis. At the time of it origination (1958), Ionesco’s play was perceived as a parable of the irreversible rise of 20th-century dictatorships. However, it is increasingly evident that his farce is a parable of the human’s unequal fight against the accession of all the threats of modern times. It reflects a scale of forms of the fight, while assuming the colourful costumes of genre shades, from comedy, through farce, drama to tragedy. Ionesco’s Rhinoceros is unquestionably one of the major works of global theatre. It has survived intact waves of fashion and still amuses and horrifies at the same time.