Rhino Hysteria in an Absurdist World

Rhinoceros, playing at the Loeb Experimental Theater, has a deceptively simple scenario: a provincial town is struck with a sort of a...well...epidemic. One by one, ordinary citizens start turning into rhinoceroses. At first the people struggle with disbelief, but as more and more victims go crashing through the streets trampling cats and knocking down stairs, the survivors become engaged in a struggle to retain their humanity. Eventually, only Berenger, a lackluster drunkard wrapped in a haze of brandy and paranoia is left to hopelessly affirm his own humanity as everyone around him joins the unstoppable herd of rhinoceroses. The play, which signaled at turning point in the career of the dramatist Eugene Ionesco, is a startling commentary on the rise of fascism and on mass hysteria.

This production has its weak points. The set, a difficult one to construct due to the frequent changes required, was a bit rudimentary. The first scene, in which some of the main philosophical problems of the play are set out, is constructed so that two or three dialogues occur at the same time, though no two people speak simultaneously. Though kept distinct from one another, the dialogues blend intellectually and ideologically to set the stage for the ensuing action. This jumping from one conversation to the next requires, of course, a perfect knowledge of the text and an exquisite sense of timing, which at times is lacking. But the production moves past some initial roughness and with fine work by various members of the cast, quickly draws the audience into Ionesco's absurdist world.

Jean, played by Jorge Rodriguez '99, gives us one of the high points of the production when he transforms himself into a rhinoceros on stage. This metamorphosis begins only with a headache but gradually Jean's voice grows hoarse and he begins to pace about his bedroom with his head lowered, breathing heavily and nearly knocking over the concerned Berenger. It is chilling to hear Jean's headstrong rhetoric take on the animal tone of totalitarianism. "I have a goal, I charge straight at it... We must reconstitute the foundations of our life. We must return to the primal integrity..." Though Berenger appeals to him in the name of civilization and morality, Jean is unstoppable. He charges the walls, grunting almost incomprehensibly, "Let's demolish all of that! We'll be better off without it" and at last, fully a rhinoceros, he turns on his friend and tries to trample him down as well.

Fred Hood '02 does an excellent job of playing off of Berenger's hysteria as Dudard, his forgivingly intellectual coworker. Other strong points are Botard, the hilarious proletarian nincompoop played by Danny Yavuzkurt '02 and Cary McClelland's '02 Logician who though sometimes a little overbearing holds up his end of the show.

But it is Berenger, of course, that forms the keystone of the production. David Skeist '02, haggard, unkempt and unshaven, hunches his tall, thin frame into an attitude of perpetual anxiety and guilt. From beginning to end he imbues the play with a seemingly bottomless paranoic energy. This reaches its climax in the final, frightening soliloquy in which he attempts himself to become a rhinoceros, and failing, realizes he must resign himself to his uniqueness, his monstrosity, his humanity.

Nonetheless my favorite character by far is Daisy. Karin Alexander '02 gives a moving rendition of Daisy's love affair with Berenger in which she, as the reluctant Eve, is wooed away from her unstable Adam by the call of the rhinoceroses. She manages, as Berenger remarks at one point, "in a few minutes to live 25 years of marriage." In the cramped apartment, as the last human woman, she is assaulted by Berenger's insistence that they resist and save the world by regenerating the human race just as she is assaulted by the roaring and stamping of the rhinoceroses outside. In the end it is she that is the most alone and upon whose shoulders the final choice falls. Her loneliness grows as she considers the prospect of living out Berenger's deranged dream of resistance. Looking out in all directions at the sea of rhinoceroses, she says sadly, "Those, those are people. They look happy. They feel good in their skin. They don't seem crazy. They're very natural. They had reasons to change." When Berenger's hysteria has moved him to hit her, with the rhinoceroses singing to her through the windows, she quietly walks out into the sea of green backs and horns.

We can understand her motivations. She has reasons for leaving. Berenger's violence, ugliness and paranoia make it seems a better thing to join the rhinoceroses who are, after all, beautiful in their own way. This is the turning point of the play, and its effectiveness lies in the way we identify with Daisy's choice. When a rhinoceros runs across the stage in scene one, taking shape as a green spotlight and brought to life by the amazed stares of the cast, it seems farcical. In the final scene, when the green lights shine at the windows of Berenger's little apartment and we can hear the thunder and the braying of the herd outside, they become a terrifying symbol of the inhumanity our human weakness can create. It is not the rhinoceroses outside Berenger's apartment that are so threatening--it is the rhinoceroses that are inside it--the rhinoceroses we become.