Rhinoceros TheatreUSF at University of South Florida, TheatreTwo, 4202 E. Fowler Ave., Tampa. Thurs.-Sat., 8 p.m. Sun., 3 p.m. $12. 913-974-2323, theatreanddance.arts.usf.eduEugene Ionesco’s Rhinoceros is far from being the great absurdist’s best play — that honor might be claimed by Exit the King, The Killer, The Chairs, or the seminal Bald Soprano — but it remains one of his most famous, for reasons that are perhaps not entirely theatrical. After all, this two-act parable about people turning into stampeding, brute animals is usually seen as a protest against conformism, and who doesn’t think of him- or herself as a non-conformist?
As one after another person becomes a rhinoceros, and as the hero Berenger (who represents Ionesco in this and other comedies) refuses to join them, it’s easy to project one’s own rebellion onto the stage and congratulate oneself for not becoming a corporate attorney, drug addict, advertising executive, video game fanatic, banker, choir boy, or (if you were French in 1959) fascist or communist. The incentive to see oneself in endangered Berenger is so strong, in fact, that it’s easy to miss just how riddled with contradictions the play is, and how it’s probably not about conformism at all. In the production of Rhinoceros currently at TheatreUSF, capably directed by C. David Frankel, the play’s temptations are prominent, as are its defects.
The plot of the overlong (two-plus hours) play is simple, and the main characters are more flat than round, caricatures rather than living personages. The most dimensional is Berenger (P.J. Gentry), a disheveled alcoholic who “can’t get used to life” and who has little to offer the world besides his angst and fatigue.
Berenger’s best friend is smug, judgmental Jean (the delightful Shelby McDonell), who spends most of his time criticizing Berenger’s slackness, and asserting his belief in duty and sobriety. The love interest is Daisy (talented Jennifer Fuller), a sweet bimbo of a woman, summed up entirely by her physical attractiveness and sugary temperament. It’s while Berenger and Jean are having a drink (in the café designed by Amanda Bearss) that they’re first alerted to the shocking spectacle of a rhinoceros loose on the city street; and it’s only a short time before they realize that the ever-expanding group of rhinoceroses are in fact former humans who have all, for unknown reasons, transformed into beasts. As more and more of Berenger’s acquaintances turn into horned marauders, we’re left to wonder if anyone — meaning Berenger — can remain thoughtful, reasonable, cultured — human. Berenger’s last hope is Daisy, with whom he just may be able to replenish the world. Assuming, of course, that neither one turns into a rhinoceros.
Now the first thing an earnest interpreter might ask is, what distinguishes those who turn into dumb animals from those who don’t? And the not very helpful answer is: nothing. The rhinoceros bug hits intelligent and simple, voluble and laconic, male and female alike and there seems to be nothing that shields one from infection. Well, then, what protects Berenger from becoming a rhinoceros? Nothing very special, aside from a discomfort with life and a failure to take anything he encounters for granted. But are we to believe that Berenger is the only person on earth who’s aware of the world’s strangeness and the wonder of creation? Okay, then what, in the cosmos of the play, does it mean to be a rhinoceros? Again, the answer isn’t very useful: a rhinoceros, we hear, is brutal, wild, and likely to demolish things. Is it thinkable that analytical Jean and syrupy Daisy will both take on this persona? If becoming a rhinoceros is a metaphor, where do we find large masses of people advocating random violence and the return to nature?
All this leads me to suspect that the real point of Rhinoceros is the impossibility of understanding our mysterious existence, which makes no more sense than a group of humans turning into rhinoceroses. This is one of Ionesco’s signature themes, which he illustrates much more imaginatively in The Bald Soprano and at many fewer minutes in his brief one-act Maid to Marry. As for the “anti-conformist” interpretation, it, like all attempts to fully grasp reality, doesn’t hold up. Nor should it: our search for “meaning,” Ionesco is saying, never quite finds a port.