'Rhinoceros' review — 20th-century satire still remains relevant

Read our review of Rhinoceros, now at the Almeida Theatre to 26 April.

Eugene Ionesco’s 1959 play Rhinoceros was initially written as a response to the spread of wartime fascism, but its message is just as pertinent in our modern times. An epidemic has hit a French village: With no explanation, its residents have started to turn into rhinoceroses. Berenger, a normal man, meets his friend Jean for a drink when they spot the first beast. Surely their eyes deceive them? It feels like a shocking, targeted attack. But then, even the people Berenger least expected begin to join the animal pack one by one.

Often compared to the likes of Animal Farm, Rhinoceros is a satire of uncritical conformity. Individuals become the masses. Eventually, it seems easier to give in rather than fight. In Omar Elerian’s version, which he has translated directly from the French and now directs, the audience is a key part of the invaded community. First, one person is selected to be an early-spotted rhinoceros; they’re handed a kazoo and told to blow into it to indicate their transformation. By the end, a chorus of rhinoceroses sits inside the theatre stalls.

This involvement is the strength of Elerian’s production and when the power of Ionesco’s original story clicks into place. But the early scenes, when the action happens solely onstage, lack power. Set on a clinical white set designed by Ana Inés Jabares-Pita, the actors have a lot of space to fill, and in the more stationary moments, we crave dynamism.

Still, Elerian has poured plenty of fresh creativity into this classic text. Sound effects are made onstage; we hear the turning and flapping of newspaper pages. A large watermelon is used in place of a cat and later is squashed and cracked horrifically by the storming beast. When the rhinoceros approaches, the ensemble morphs into its body as one. It stamps and paces on heavy feet. It snorts fiercely as both a warning and a joining plea.

The transfiguration itself is an out-of-body, violent change. In Jean’s transformation scene, Joshua McGuire’s body contorts inside itself inside out, with his clothes stripped away to reveal an inner grey, leathery skin. The lasting message is that a rhinoceros might exist within us all.

Elerian’s translation brings out the humour in Ionesco’s original, too. Hayley Carmichael squeals and roars in fear as a villager stunned by the presence of a rhinoceros, who might have been her husband in another life. But even today, this play digs into society’s darkness and humanity’s weakness.

At the close, Berenger — a fantastic Ṣọpẹ́ Dìrísù — is the last man standing. He will never surrender, he shouts over and over. But, if Ionesco’s parable teaches us anything, it is that rhetoric will more than likely erode free will.

Rhinoceros is at the Almeida Theatre to 26 April. Check back for tickets on LondonTheatre.co.uk.

Photo credit: Rhinoceros (Photos by Marc Brenner)