RHINOCEROS
Almeida Theatre
★★★★
“an appeal to the senses, an experience as peculiar and nonsensical as a fit of the giggles”
Director Omar Elerian’s electrifying interpretation of the absurdist classic Rhinoceros is as much about theatre as it is about marauding pachyderms.
In his vision of French Romanian writer Eugene Ionesco’s 1959 fable, Elerian meticulously parodies the conventions of theatre and presents them back to the audience with a knowing wink.
In this case, theatre becomes a series of artificial and disconnected moments that meld alchemically into a kaleidoscopic whole.
People don’t so much talk to each other as engage in the mechanics of dialogue, delivering nonsensical retorts and ever spiralling repetitions. No-one listens. Communication is impossible. Extended riffs on, say, the number of horns on the eponymous rhinoceros rise into a dizzying tumult of words, sometimes pin sharp, then losing focus, only to return to a semblance of meaning measured by weight alone.
The audience is puzzled, bored, irritated, mesmerised, intrigued, amused – often within the same minute.
In an overlong and sometimes grating production, the story features a provincial French village – perhaps something out of a Wes Anderson movie – with a cast of deadpan pedants and eccentrics. A rhinoceros charges through the village square causing chaos. Then another, which tramples a cat. Soon it emerges that the villagers themselves are becoming the beasts.
Political writer Ionescu was, perhaps, thinking of the spread of fascism in pre-war France, making points about conformity and appeasement to the monstrous.
Elerian, wisely, veers away from heavy-handed politics and leans into the comedy. In his own translation, he updates the gags to include references to Covid, Wallace and Gromit and Severance. He gathers about him a troupe of actors superbly adept at the challenge of farce.
John Biddle, Hayley Carmichael, Paul Hunter, Joshua McGuire, Anoushka Lucas, Sophie Steer, and Alan Williams – in suitable white coats against a box-of-tricks white stage – are put through their paces in a series of scenarios, like an improv troupe picking suggestions out of a top hat.
Elerian creates a grandiose, meta-flecked circus – complete with clowns, kazoos and funny wigs. His message appears to be that laughter creates community when meaning fails.
In the most effective sequence McGuire, as Jean, battles with the agonies of transformation, a rousing set piece that exemplifies the thrilling choreography that is a highlight of the production.
Like Jean, the villagers succumb one by one to the plague until the hero of the piece, flustered slob and everyman Berenger (Ṣọpẹ́ Dìrísù), is left on his own, making a stand against the onslaught.
At this point, anti-theatre becomes theatre again. Rhinoceros finally relies on the tropes of storytelling to make a connection – but too late. Without the groundwork, this burst of coherent humanity feels unearned.
Never mind. Rhinoceros is an appeal to the senses, an experience as peculiar and nonsensical as a fit of the giggles.
RHINOCEROS
Almeida Theatre
Reviewed on 1st April 2025
by Giles Broadbent
Photography by Marc Brenner
Previously reviewed at this venue:
OTHERLAND | ★★★★ | February 2025
WOMEN, BEWARE THE DEVIL | ★★★★ | February 2023
