Bérenger’s last words in Omar Elerian’s version of Eugène Ionesco’s Rhinoceros are “I won’t surrender”, repeated with escalating anguish, whilst the rest of the company take their calm bows to cheers. Job done. The pliable audience out to have a good time is distracted and entertained. But like him, I am resistant to its sleight of hand, at times tedious, faux charms (though I enjoy the acting), a succinct play stretched to two and a half hours with much monkey business… wrong animal I know.
But look at the metaphor… How easy to be sucked in by the stand-up comedy or panto puerile with an invitation to participate in collective arm gestures and play kazoos, conducted by the Narrator (a droll Paul Hunter) who calls himself a Provocateur and André Preview. Not easy being the last sane man standing against the daft collective conformity of his provincial town, its residents, one by one, capitulating to what becomes the rhinoceros circus norm.
Elerian has turned Ionesco’s surreal ‘absurdity’ into Brechtian theatre (apparently Ionesco hated Brechtian theatre…), no fourth wall, all metatheatricality. The Narrator speaks the stage directions. The company of eight play several roles (apart from Ṣọpẹ́ Dìrísù as Bérenger), do all the sound effects and sketch the invisible props with their hands on a bare white set (costumes and set by Ana Inés Jabares-Pita) but for a few white chairs and piano at the back, stage left.
We know it is stage left as that is inscribed on the piano. People do get stage right and left mixed up, even actors, and there’s comedy in that. False exits, refusing to use the ladder when the office burns down—simply walking off (very Eric Morecambe), lots of visual jokes. Where’s the door—it has to be delineated by another actor.
Casting Paul Hunter and Hayley Carmichael of devised and physical theatre company Told By An Idiot already gives the game away. They are deadpan wonderful. They bring not only Jacques Lecoq to mind but also Peter Brook’s rough theatre, Grotowski’s poor theatre, Meyerhold’s biomechanics, Dadaists and Surrealists. Or maybe bonkers British situation comedy—you fill in my gaps.
With ‘Ken Dodd’ baroque hairdos and all in white overalls (except straight man Bérenger in normal brown), they could be the lunatics taking over the asylum—so relevant today in the posturing minefield we call politics—with the aid of social media beckoning with whatever big lie the 'Orwellian' populists choose.
Here the big lie is that syllogisms (there’s a Logician) and clichés and kazoos (Hunter describes it as “an instrument of torture”) do eventually work on the complicity of the audience. Fake news, disinformation, but such conspiratorial fun. Until it isn’t. Poor Bérenger holds out almost to the end until the love of his life, Daisy (Anoushka Lucas), succumbs to the ‘sweet’ animals. Then he tries to convert but just can’t.
He looks on in horror when his best friend Jean (Joshua McGuire brilliant) transforms in front of his eyes into a sleek, green-skinned rhino with a tail. Toby Sedgwick’s choreography marshals the company with precision. They know their places, be it in a line at the back under white lights or at the microphones, and Lucas, for some reason, not Ionesco’s, sings an Italian song—in Italian. We are told to not worry about the meaning in surtitles above the stage. “What do you need meaning for?”
Surtitles and video screen add to the intimacy and humour. In the interval, we have some lovely baroque singing to while away the time. All our needs catered for, nice to be wanted. After the interval come the kazoos-yielding audience members, who at the signal from the Narrator join in the mindless fun. We are so malleable. Scary, isn’t it? And Bérenger is scared and confused.
Ṣọpẹ́ Dìrísù’s Bérenger is a decent chap if a bit disorganised with his time-keeping and drinking—maybe this stops him from following the herd. John Biddle (music director, original music, pianist and actor) is a sinister Dudard and crazy Logician. Alan Williams stands out as Mr Papillion and Old Gent—his laconic drawl (he even speaks some French) a gift to the roles.
The Old Gent and Old Woman (Carmichael) scene, of course, is a reference to The Chairs. They would be perfect in a new staging, though Elerian has already directed that with Kathryn Hunter and the late Marcello Magni in 2022.
And last but not least, ensemble member, Lady with the cat (a watermelon which gets squashed and later eaten), and Firefighter, Sophie Steer, who does many of the sound effects. A good team all round, but in the end, it just doesn't gel for me. Even the clever collective handclap—set up very early with the gestures routine for one late scene—the slap Bérenger is supposed to give Daisy. He looks reluctantly at us… the audience obliges. Elerian has set us up nicely. We have been pranked.
Being of Romanian and French heritage, domiciled permanently since 1942 in occupied France, Ionesco was referencing Romanian and German nationalists (rhino skin the green uniforms of the Iron Guard and the Ordnungspolizei). What would the colour be today? A timely satirical warning from 1959...