Absurdist or absurd?
The Almeida has revived Ionesco’s absurdist 1959 Rhinoceros, and one might wonder why.
It was embedded in Ionesco’s own experiences in his native Romania and the experience of wartime France, and the absurdist transformation of the staid, boring and normal population into Rhinoceroses has clear connections to the ways in which fascist ideologies start small but grow exponentially, and how normal societies become abnormal.
Looking across the pond, some might cease to wonder.
The play premiered in the UK in 1960, with a starry cast in the West End, headed by Lawrence Olivier and Joan Plowright (later Maggie Smith on transfer from the Royal Court).
In many ways the point about staging absurdist drama is that the absurd element must be quite clear – the townsfolk are turning into Rhinoceroses – set within a sea of normality. How can normal people not see how absurd things are?
This production isn’t quite like that. Heavily re-written it has become a Brechtian alienation take on Ionesco’s theme, the setting is stark, the fourth wall is continuously shattered and much additional schtick has been written in, not least with a Commentator (Provocateur – Paul Hunter) reading and dramatizing the stage directions and engaging the audience in communal activity (including a section of the audience providing sound for a herd of Rhinoceroses, which did work).
By making the ‘normal’ townsfolk rather less than normal, the non-conforming Bérenger (Ṣọpẹ́ Dìrísù) stands out less; by dressing the townsfolk in lab coats (?) they appear already regimented. At one stage, before they become Rhinoceroses, the remaining townsfolk wear identical clothes – is that another form of regimentation or simply a nod that one character in the original play is now being played by four actors?
There are many things to praise in this production – the Brechtian thing is done very well (even though we are so used to fourth walls being busted that that no longer alienates) – there is some excellent play with a café table which doesn’t actually exist, the acting seems uniformly strong.
And the cast, to support the lack of furniture and props (there is a little but not much) operate two Foley tables stage left and right and manage the effects openly.
And some strange ones – wigs that might have been designed by Dr Seuss (on acid), too much interpolation of new material, perhaps too many attempts to signal towards the new America.
In very much losing the simplicity of Ionesco’s intent a new clarity has not been substituted.
But it is interesting and at times very funny. I don’t regret going; but I would have loved to see Olivier and Plowright, or Smith, in 1960.
And the father of one of our party was Olivier’s understudy for this.