This month, Cal Poly Humboldt brings us Rhinoceros by Eugène Ionesco, one of the plays that launched the Theater of the Absurd movement from the 1950s, which remains culturally germane in any era and locale.
It starts in an anonymous village in France, where our protagonist Bérenger (Joe Carter) meets his good friend Jean (Hudson Lauer), while a large cast of villagers fill the stage with their own goings on around them. As the friends visit, a rhinoceros runs through town. All the characters comment, debate, pontificate and otherwise have a lot to say about the incident, except for Bérenger, who doesn’t see why it’s a big deal and would much rather have his morning brandy. Before the villagers can make sense of the occurrence, it happens again, only this time with dire consequences for a beloved pet. The characters discover that the rhinoceroses are people they know from the village who have transformed. As the crisis mounts with a growing, stampeding rhinoceros herd, Bérenger tries to make sense of the situation without contradicting anyone. In this state of chaos, noise and confusion disguised as logical investigation and discussion, Bérenger must choose between joining the herd or staying true to himself no matter how inadequate that is.
At any given point, one may reasonably ask of our fellows, “How did we get here? Why have we divided ourselves so strongly and to our own detriment? Why does everyone else seem so unreasonable? What is reality and what do words even mean?” The play doesn’t answer those questions for you. Instead, it takes you on a journey though the Theater of the Absurd where those questions are reflected back to you with a warped mirror. The dialogue in many scenes resembles commentary found on social media sites with people expounding at cross purposes, exuberantly conflating facts with opinions and rarely making any cohesive sense, yet taking themselves very, very seriously. The play was informed by Ionesco’s experiences in World War II’s fascist Romania and published in 1959. The similarity between the characters on the stage and current digital culture proves the timelessness of the theme.
The aesthetic tone of the play is led strongly by the set. The boundaries of the buildings, doors and windows are rounded, off-center and askew enough to be disturbing. Scenic designer Casey Vaughn has created a dream world that is more unsettling than whimsical. This frames the character’s exaggerated movements to create a surreal experience. As the play progresses, so does the absurdity of the characters’ movements, dialogue and choices. We are led to become less certain of what is real within the world, who is the hero, or if there ever was one. It is not a comfortable or cozy storytelling experience, which is an important point Ianesco is making.
James Peck’s direction clearly leads the cast to explore physical boundaries of acting and encourages concepts of clowning and farce in the character development. The well-executed physical theater brings laughter without releasing tension, which keeps the off-kilter energy going throughout the play.
The cast of (mostly) students inhabits their unique characters well. They rise to the challenge of staying authentic in a bizarre and contrary setting. The characters are tied together by being universally self-important. The young actors lean hard into that one trait and give their characters individuality through their various expressions of it. Carter’s Bérenger is a strong lead, imbued with insecurity and anxiety that read as the only sane response to an insane situation. He contrasts well with Lauer’s arrogant, know-it-all Jean.
It would be easy to experience this cornerstone piece of Theater of the Absurd in a state of complacency by assuming the over-the-top characters and rhinoceros are clear allegories for current events. But I think you would be missing out on important, uncomfortable ideas if you do so. Remember, no matter how strange and warped the fun-house mirror is, it can only reflect whoever is looking at it.
Performances of Rhinoceros at the John Van Duzer Theatre continue Friday, Nov. 13, and Saturday, Nov. 14, at 7:30 p.m., and Sunday, Nov. 15, at 2 p.m. Visit tickets.humboldt.edu/section/dance-music-theatre-kldu or call (707) 826-3566.
Doranna Benker Gilkey (she/her) is a longtime Humboldt County resident and can often be found at her store Dandar’s Boardgames and Books in Arcata.
This article appears in El Niño is Here.