Rhinoceros, Almeida Theatre Review
Written by Sarah for Theatre & Tonic
Disclaimer: Gifted tickets in exchange for an honest review
Rhinoceros tells the story of a man in a small village in France who turns into a rhinoceros. From the outset, the audience are explicitly invited to bring their imaginations. “A lady walks down the road with a cat under her arm”. Except it is an actor on a stage and the cat is a watermelon. When the cat is run over by a rhino and the red juicy innards of the melon are exposed, the audience gasps and laughs simultaneously. Such is the contract we have entered into of investing our imaginations. Absurd? It is. And the Almedia have brought in the A-team.
Ionesco wrote the play in 1950’s as an anti fascist response to the horrors of WW2. Inevitably, an audience will view it through their own lens. However, in this ‘post truth’, post pandemic, post Trump era, it resonates and reverberates down the spine. The heart of the story highlights the dangers of ‘groupthink’, our ability to retain independent thought in a society and systems that pull us in to conforming. Even to the extent that our belief systems become corrupted and morals compromised.
Ana Inés Jabares-Pita’s design is simple and delicately deliberate. The white stage with white opaque curtains as a backdrop and actors dressed at the beginning in white coats with carefully chaotic hairstyles, creates the overall impression of ‘mad professors’ in a laboratory. There are pops of primary colours, bright yellow shoes, a pair of red gloves, royal blue trousers which adds to the cartoon-like elements and feeling of the absurd. It is an integral habitat for the story.
The actors break the fourth wall with direct address, cheeky asides and expertly timed jokes. The director and translator, Omar Elerian, has infused delightful playfulness which he describes in the program notes as closer to the original French translations and in the spirit of the Buffoon tradition. The humour makes some of the dense philosophical discussions more enjoyable and the darker turns the play takes, more disturbing.
The cast is composed of actors of the highest calibre, many trained at the Lecoqe school in Paris, and includes the founders of Told by an Idiot theatre company. John Biddle, Hayley Carmichael, Ṣọpẹ́ Dìrísù, Paul Hunter, Anoushka Lucas, Joshua McGuire, Sophie Steer and Alan Williams, form a complete ensemble.
The absurd, anti-realist production is a welcome contrast to the volume of hyper-realistic, lived-experience work currently in vogue on the London theatre scene. It is a masterclass in the unique experience of theatre and stories that can not be told through film or radio. I am stimulated, laughing, thinking, confused, shocked, and challenged. I am enthralled in awe, inspired and excited by the theatrical revelry of it all.
This production should be seen by anyone who has never experienced Absurdist theatre before, anyone who thinks they hate Absurdist theatre and anyone who loves it. Tickets are like gold dust, but grab one if you can.
At Almeida Theatre until 26 April 2025
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
