Rhinoceros

Rhinoceros

A Classic Drama by Eugene Ionesco

Directed by Jonathan Wierzbicki

May 7-22, 2004

In Rhinoceros, as in his earlier plays, Ionesco startles the audience with a world that invariably erupts in explosive laughter and nightmare anxiety. “With outrageous comedy, Ionesco attacks the most serious subjects; blind conformity and totalitarianism, despair and death.” – The New York Times.

Berenger, an average citizen in a nameless French city, witnesses that the staff in his local government office are gradually turning into rhinoceros. His disinterest in this odd occurrence causes him to quarrel with his friend Jean and his attractive secretary Daisy outside a grocer’s shop. The argument continues with many local joining in, including the grocer and his wife, a waitress and a housewife, a cafe owner, an old gentleman, a waitress and a logician. The group try to reason the events that are happening around them and the results are understandably chaotic.

Eventually Berenger finds out that Daisy and he are the only human beings left and he resolves to “stay until the end” and fight the rhinoceros.