Burkle’s Strong Direction Carries

RHINOCEROS
LOCATION: Leob Experimental Theatre
DATES: Dec. 9- Dec. 17
DIRECTOR: Jess R. Burkle ’06
PRODUCER: Ivona Josipovic ’06

Gesturing wildly in the air, a logician concludes that Socrates was in fact a cat while a townsperson-turned-rhinoceros roams the village. The Harvard-Radcliffe Dramatic Club (HRDC) production of absurdist playwright Eugène Ionesco’s “Rhinoceros” shines when presenting such over-the-top antics; but true victory lies in its profound and stirring interpretation of the work’s dark underlying themes.

On its surface, “Rhinoceros” deals with the humorously inexplicable transformation of the inhabitants of a quiet French village into rhinoceri, an epidemic that consumes everyone but the protagonist, Berenger (Eric D. Lang ’09).

These metamorphoses are actually a disturbing representation of the spread of fascism. At first, the village is shocked by the transformations, but as more and more people decide to join the movement, it gains unstoppable momentum; as one character explains, “We must move with the times.”

The father of the Theater of the Absurd, Ionesco is hardly writing of angst-ridden and fantastic Kafkaesque metamorphoses—in fact, quite the contrary is true. By the end of the play, it is the single remaining human form that seems grotesque in comparison with the peaceful and contented converts.

Director Jess R. Burkle ’06 successfully conveys the strange ethereal appeal of “rhinoceritis” with deceptively uncomplicated set-ups. In a brilliant artistic decision, no attempt is made to create the ungainly rhinoceros costumes that have weakened past renditions; instead, each newly transformed villager simply opens a red umbrella. It is a quiet, visually appealing, and deeply unsettling representation of the villagers’ transformations.

The unconventional use of the umbrellas injects a layer of inventive visual interpretation into the entire production. While holed up in his room, Berenger receives a threatening phone call from the rhinoceroses—there is no sound, but the audience watches with trepidation as he frantically unscrews the receiver to reveal a miniature red umbrella within the phone. In the chilling final set, hundreds of umbrellas, motionless and silent, provide an unsettling backdrop for Berenger’s anguished cries.

However, the director does not go without missteps. Two characters inexplicably speak only in French, and two others are perpetually written to be on cell phones. Yet these minor flaws are easily overlooked.

The stage of the Loeb Experimental Theatre space is well used, as the director stages different settings in different areas of the theater to avoid the time-consuming onstage set changes, for which the play is often criticized. Stark, clean lighting reemphasizes the harshness of the graphic all-white sets. The set design, also by Burkle, is so strikingly minimalist that the walls seem like blank canvases. In fact, when Berenger’s friend Jean (Michael B. Hoagland ’07) throws up during his sickness, the green vomit becomes art as it drips down the wall in abstract expressionistic splendor.

The characters themselves become part of the sets. Indeed, the end of the play finds Berenger crouching terrified under his table, but his tormented final protest and last line are not shouted until half the audience has already left the theatre.

The supporting characters are excellent, most notably Noah A. Rosenblum ’08 in his frenzied and hilariously unpredictable portrayal of the eccentric logician. Hoagland gives a stunningly versatile performance; he affectedly twirls his umbrella and skips a few dance steps as the pompous Jean, but during his transformation into a rhinoceros, he paces and bellows with a vigorous pent-up power.

Lang, however, is less successful as Berenger. He captures the naiveté and uncertainty of his character in the play’s early scenes, but as the supporting characters begin dropping away as a part of the storyline, his performance becomes tiresome because of his whiny voice affectation. In particular, the third act, which takes place in his apartment, drags on, unaided by a bland performance by Jennifer L. Brown ’07 as love-interest Daisy. Their relationship is unconvincing at best.

Yet the brilliance and innovation of the interpretation by director and set designer Burkle triumphs over the occasionally weak acting. The haunting red umbrellas take Ioensco’s rhinoceroses beyond the absurd and into the surreal; the HRDC production transcends a mere illustration of the script and creates a work of art in its own right.