RHINOCEROS. To 15 December.

London

RHINOCEROS
by Eugene Ionesco translated by Martin Crimp.

Royal Court (Jerwood Theatre Downstairs) In rep to 15 December 2007.
Mon-Sat 7.30pm Mat Sat 2.30pm
Audio-described 17 Nov 2.30pm.
BSL Signed 11 Oct.
Captioned 1 Dec 2.30pm.
Post-show Talk 9 Oct.
Runs 2hr 25min One interval.

TICKETS: 020 7565 5000.
www.royalcourttheatre.com
Review: Timothy Ramsden.

Witty revival of play where, again, four legs are good.
Italian Fascists aren’t like German fascists, a character in Vittorio de Sica’s film The Garden of the Finzi-Continis tries to assure his family. Similarly, in Eugene Ionesco’s 1959 play, when there are a couple of rampaging rhino sightings in quiet French streets, one trampling a woman’s favoured pet, people argue over whether it was two rhinos once or one rhino twice and whether it/they had one horn or two.

Pretty soon just about everybody’s turned into a rhinoceros. If Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot is the Absurdist play where nothing happens, twice, Ionesco’s is the one where one thing happens frequently.

Nowadays, Rhinoceros looks less like Absurdism, with its existentialist underpinning, more like a pointed political parable. As such, it’s fascinatingly teamed in this autumn’s Royal Court repertoire with Swiss dramatist Max Frisch’s parable of force overwhelming weak decency, The Arsonists.

Just as Orwell’s 1984 victims end loving Big Brother before being destroyed by his state machine, Ionesco shows people becoming compliant before turning into rhinoceroses. Whether it’s the dapper, punctilious Jean (Jasper Britton splendid in his refined annoyance at Berenger’s sloppiness and later, contrasting crescendo of transformation into a horny-skinned pachyderm) or Paul Chahidi’s Dudard slipping with smooth reason into sympathy with the rhinoceros trend, the play shows how both instinct and reason persuade people to accept a forceful ideology.

And it isn’t only size-zero models who recreate the concept of beauty. Berenger, unshaven and semi-sunk in alcohol, is unconcerned with the early rhino sightings, but he’s ultimately no lone hero survivor, becoming desperate to turn with the crowd, attempting rhino trumpetings as the last, reluctant human.

This is the play's problem, as the focus moves from the neat, populated open spaces of the opening to the semi-destroyed room where Berenger’s left alone, with rhinos intruding all round. Benedict Cumberbatch handles the final monologue capably, but its point’s made long before it finishes.

Dominic Cooke’s direction and Martin Crimp’s crisp English version maximise action and wit in a play that works well till its final reliance on character individuality in a play that has not been about individually-realised characters.

Housewife/Jean’s Wife: Jacqueline Defferary.
Grocer Woman/Madame Boeuf: Alwyne Taylor.
Jean: Jasper Britton.
Berenger: Benedict Cumberbatch.
Waitress: Claire Prempeh.
Grocer Man/Dudard: Paul Chahidi.
Old Gentleman/Monsieur Papillon: Graham Turner.
Logician: Michael Begley.
Boss of Café/Fireman: David Hinton.
Daisy: Zawe Ashton.
Botard: Lloyd Hutchinson.
Rhino: Charles Ash/Lizzi Breckon/Chiarra Tuckett.

Director: Dominic Cooke.
Designer: Anthony Ward.
Lighting: Johanna Town.
Sound: Ian Dickinson.
Composer: Gary Yershon.
Movement: Sue Lefton.
Assistant director: Lyndsey Turner.
Rhino heads: Jonathan Beakes.
Assistant movement: Lizzie Ballinger.

Sponsor: Coutts.

2007-09-30 12:09:04