This year’s paradoxical winter drama “Rhinoceros” charged straight at audiences in a roundabout way.
The production played on Thursday, January 10 and Friday, January 11. The drama, written in 1959 by Eugene Ionesco about the rise of nazism, was directed by seniors Susan Augenbraun and Christina Martin and assistant-directed by sophomore Annalise Jorgensen Lockhart.
The contradictory existentialist play, written by Eugenio Ionesco, tells the story of white-collar Frenchman Berenger (senior Isaac Miller). Berenger is the typical anti-hero. He’s an unassertive, trembling alcoholic who’s confused about his place in the world, despite being startlingly lucid.
The play opens with Berenger seeking the advice of his coworker, Jean (senior Joseph Kopyt), over lunch at a café. Their ponderous conversation is interrupted by a rampaging rhinoceros, whose sudden appearance causes a minor calamity among the shopkeepers and patrons. After the dust settles, Berenger and Jean pick up their conversation, the themes of which are nicely layered with an ironically illogical discussion about syllogism between a logician (a funny sophomore Santi Slade) and an old man (freshman Daniel Hayeem).
Berenger is prompted by Jean to seek order in his life by becoming cultured. The next time they meet, Berenger finds Jean sick with a hoarse voice and a bump on his head. Jean devolves into a rhinoceros, and the rest of the human race follows. The following scenes deal with Berenger’s metamorphosis and struggle between his own hazy convictions and conformation to ‘rhinoceritis’.
The dynamics in the opening scene between the appropriately cast Kopyt and Miller are nothing short of marvelous. Kopyt, a seasoned theater veteran, plays the chiding, self-important Jean with snappy vigor and barefaced condescension. Jean knows it all; he’s been there, done that.
Kopyt’s performance contrasts excellently with newcomer Miller’s timid stuttering and self-deprecation. It’s almost like watching Kopyt giving Miller acting advice instead of life lessons. When Jean transforms into a rhinoceros, Kopyt manages to maintain Jean’s signature pompous air and doesn’t fully lose control immediately.
Sophomore Sammy Sussman’s performance as Botard, Berenger’s denial-ridden coworker was, for many, the highlight of the show. Sussman is eccentric and jaunty, delivering his lines with satirical bravado. When arguing with Dudard (sophomore Alon Sicherman, appropriately meek), Sussman is quick to puff out his chest and declare, rather than merely present, his points to the audience.
Miller is harder to like at first. His delivery is a little too contrived, and he doesn’t immediately grab the audience’s attention. However, as Miller became more comfortable with his part, he became easily the best part of the play. Viewers who don’t care for philosophy and pretentious absurdism found substance in Miller’s outstanding performance.
His well-timed body language—bashful, uncertain, jittery—as he continuously smoothes back his hair and twitches his eyebrows in the first scene is rueful and endearing. He doesn’t seem like the main character for much of the play, being constantly outshined by bigger, brassier characters like Mrs. Boeuf (a lively performance by freshman Willa Beckman),
Botard and even The Housewife (a bouncy, crisp-voiced senior Lily Akerman), but Miller pulls it out in the end. As one of the last people on Earth, he pleads with love-interest Daisy (a sweet and understated freshman Rebecca Temkin) to marry him and repopulate the planet. Miller is angrily charismatic, and he holds nothing back. His nuanced declarations of love are every bit as emphatic as his last bellows of rage at the rhinoceroses.
The play depicts a grim and brutal reality, through a plot which shadows the rise of Nazism. Miller takes on the challenging role, as the earth’s last remaining shred of humanity doomed to conform, with an angry and frightening charisma.
“Rhinoceros” is a heavy, dialogue-oriented play. Considering this, the stage crew opted for a minimalist set design. The clean, largely ordinary sets were functional and pleasant enough as background pieces. The café in the first scene was cheerful and distinctively French. The latter scenes weren’t variegated, but they served their purpose.
Sound was somewhat unimpressive. The trembling brasses that set the mood for the play were nice, but bland. The muffled recordings that represented the presence of rhinos were annoying and jarring, but grew to be quirky and humorous by the end.
It should be noted that most of the cast consisted of relatively inexperienced actors, “A lot of our cast were young freshmen. There were a few veterans, like Joe, but they never really lorded over us,” said Miller.
Despite the lack of experience, the actors pulled off their parts well.
“The actors are engaging. They obviously put a lot of work into it,” said freshman Theresa Yan, an audience member.
Augenbraun was also surprised at the results. “I’m happy with it. Act three really came together. I thought we were unprepared,” she said.
In the middle of the second act Bodard said, “I don’t believe in journalists. I like to see things with my own eyes.”
“Rhinoceros” advocates independent thinking, passing judgment for oneself and a perhaps unfair view of journalists from a playwright who has earned so many good reviews.
