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Synopsis An absurd classic about a French town where the in inhabitants start turning into rampaging rhinos. Only one man seems to know what's happening. This fable draws parallels with the rise of fascism in middle of the 20th century. Downstairs. International Season
Benedict Cumberbatch & Jasper Britton in Rhinoceros
Date: 28 September 2007
Eugene Ionesco’s early Absurdist play Rhinoceros received its first major UK revival last night (27 September 2007, previews from 21 September) at the Royal Court, where it continues until 15 December, directed by artistic director Dominic Cooke. From 6 November (previews from 1 November), it will run in repertory with Ramin Gray’s revival of Max Frisch’s The Arsonists, performed by the same company.
That company is led by Benedict Cumberbatch who, in Ionesco’s satire on conformity, plays Berenger, a man whose entire world is threatened when herds of rhinoceroses start thundering through town. He’s joined by Jasper Britton, Zawe Ashton, Michael Begley, Paul Chahidi, Jacqueline Defferary, David Hinton, Lloyd Hutchinson, Claire Prempeh, Alwyne Taylor and Graham Turner.
In the Jerwood Theatre Downtairs, the plays by Romanian-born Frenchman Ionesco and the Swiss Frisch form the cornerstone of the Royal Court’s internationally themed autumn season. The International Playwrights Season runs concurrently in the smaller Jerwood Theatre Upstairs with five new plays by writers from Germany, Romania, India, Sweden and Ukraine.
Rhinoceros had its Royal Court premiere in a 1960 production directed by Orson Welles and starring Laurence Olivier. The Arsonists (then under the title of The Fire Raisers) premiered at the Court a year later, directed by Lindsay Anderson with Alfred Marks and John Thaw in the cast.
While overnight critics are self-confessed fans of Dominic Cooke and the changes he’s effected at the Royal Court since taking over as artistic director earlier this year, they’re less sure about the merits of Ionesco’s play, which some considered dated, dull and predictable – despite Martin Crimp’s “wittily amusing” new translation. However, there was praise for Cooke’s “exemplary” production values and for many of the performances, particularly that of Jasper Britton, whose physically robust, second-act rhinocerisation was declared the evening’s highlight.
Michael Coveney on Whatsonstage.com (three stars) - “The second act transformation of Jean is the brilliant highlight of the show; as Jasper Britton whinnies and groans, develops a bump on his forehead, charges naked around the stage and finally joins the bestial herd … Cooke’s production lacks the sort of wildness that would renew the theatricality of the piece; it’s all a little too English and polite, and the rhino masks are too literal and pantomimic. The third act scenes between Berenger and the loyal Daisy (Zawe Ashton) are the weakest part of Crimp’s script and the most tentatively played. Benedict Cumberbatch is a brilliant actor, but he’s far too modest in this knockout role. The company includes fine contributions from Lloyd Hutchinson as an officious pen-pusher in a black beret, Paul Chahidi as a comic rationalist and Jacqueline Defferary as the hysterical housewife whose trampled pussy cat is the first sign of the rhino revolution.”
Michael Billington in the Guardian (three stars) – “One gets the point of Ionesco's parable, but it has few of the narrative surprises found in a fictional equivalent such as Animal Farm. His central metaphor is also so vague as to be meaningless: you could apply it with equal validity to Nazism, communism or capitalist consumerism. In celebrating nonconformist individualism as automatically heroic, he is in danger of assuming every minority is right. Even if I find the play intellectually woolly and predictable, I can't deny the wit of Martin Crimp's translation or the vitality of Cooke's staging. There are some genuinely funny moments … And Anthony Ward has come up with a set that memorably disintegrates: in one unforgettable image we see a rhino horn, belonging to Berenger's best friend, suddenly protruding through a bathroom door. The production values are exemplary ... And, although Cumberbatch doesn't succeed in making Berenger anything more than a nay-saying cipher, there is a peach of a performance from Jasper Britton as Jean.”
Charles Spencer in the Daily Telegraph - “I entered the theatre expecting to be bored rigid, for theatrical absurdism often amounts to little more than trite mechanical parables … By the end, only the scruffy, drink-befuddled Berenger, entirely surrounded by hostile rhinoceroses, is left to deliver the play’s predictable moral: ‘Woe betide the man who refuses to conform.’ I distrust art whose meaning can be summed up in a single sentence. Bub moment by moment, Cooke’s production, in a lively new version by Martin Crimp, is often highly entertaining … Cooke’s production beautifully captures the disbelief of the local citizenry when the rhino phenomenon first becomes apparent … And Anthony Ward’s ingenious design keeps springing surprises right to the end … Benedict Cumberbatch memorably captures the rumpled decency, confusion and despair of the everyman hero. Jasper Britton is hilarious as a prissy, fastidious Frenchman who spectacularly transforms himself into a furious rhino and Zawe Ashton provides some much needed love interest in this somewhat sterile fable.”
Nicholas de Jongh in the Evening Standard (four stars) – “What abundant laughter attends Eugene Ionesco's Rhinoceros! … Ionesco's purpose, though, is deadly serious … His play cynically views the human drive to conformity and, perhaps influenced by Hitler's occupation of France, an ostrich-like refusal to face the truth … Berenger's best friend, Jasper Britton's Jean, who first appears in a three-piece suit and a fit of smug, self-adoring belligerence, later undergoes a swift physical and vocal transformation that marks his rhinocerisation. Britton's powerfully articulated performance, a comic and dramatic bull's-eye, is not matched by Cumberbatch's. As Berenger he effectively registers amiability and gauche passion for Zawe Ashton's Daisy but not real terror when he takes a defiant stand to resist becoming a rhinoceros… Cooke, fortified by Martin Crimp's wittily amusing translation, works best in the fields of black comedy. He has a clear eye for menace, too, with the chilling final tableau of rhinoceroses surrounding all exits in Berenger's wrecked apartment. The text, though, needs trimming. The prolonged satirical-absurdist arguments, which make laboured nonsense of logic, need severe pruning. Even so Rhinoceros remains utterly captivating.”
Paul Taylor in the Independent – “Dominic Cooke has just the genius and kick that this venue needs. We seem, thrillingly, to be re-entering the era of Stephen Daldry. It's fist-bitingly exciting. All the same, why are we being subjected to Rhinoceros? … It feels to me flat-out mistake. It's an act of piety, to be sure. Ionesco's play was one of the first shows to be put on at Court. It's quite brilliantly directed. Cooke strikes me as possibly the most gifted director in the country (equally able in the classics and new work). And yet not even his flair can rescues a play that seems dated and dead … Cooke's stunning production … whips up the tension brilliantly, with its off-stage suggestion of a stampede. It's lucid, expertly orchestrated and yet the play, an Absurdist fable about the pressure to conform (Fascist, Communist, you name it) has not survived its own occasion. Benedict Cumberbatch is marvellous in the lead. Cooke is a great actors' director and he releases something in Cumberbatch we have not seen before … I was impressed and bored.”
The renewed interest in what used to be called the Theatre of the Absurd – really just philosophical surrealism – has led the Royal Court’s artistic director, Dominic Cooke, back to one of his theatre’s earliest successes, Eugene Ionesco’s Rhinoceros.
In 1960, Orson Welles directed Laurence Olivier and Joan Plowright (Maggie Smith in the West End transfer) in this metaphorical parable about the inhabitants of a provincial French town converting en masse to “rhinoceritis”; they change into rhinos with only Berenger – like some barmy Ibsenite loner – refusing to join in.
Martin Crimp’s new translation signals a test case for lightness of touch in the sombre context of Royal Court social realism and launches a new ensemble to play Ionesco in tandem with Max Frisch’s The Arsonists (another early Court success, better known as The Fire Raisers).
Much of Cooke’s production on a splintering orange box set by Anthony Ward is highly enjoyable. The traditional rumbling of the Circle Line trains under Sloane Square (a distraction an infuriated Harold Pinter once wanted forcibly obliterated when directing a play there) is augmented by the gathering storm of galloping rhinos.
Berenger (Benedict Cumberbatch) is nursing a hangover and fielding the fussy disapproval of his friend Jean (Jasper Britton). Jean himself goes out on a bender that night and, the next morning, is paying the price. The second act transformation of Jean is the brilliant highlight of the show; as Britton whinnies and groans, develops a bump on his forehead, charges naked around the stage and finally joins the bestial herd.
This dispenses with the idea that alcoholism might be a shield against conformism. Ionesco’s point is less precise. The unstoppable movement of rhinos is a sign of uniformity. It was once seen to be a stand against fascism; now, it could equally be against Marxism or religious fundamentalism. This makes nonsense, however, of Berenger’s last ditch desire to change his skin and grow a protuberant nose.
Cooke’s production lacks the sort of wildness that would renew the theatricality of the piece; it’s all a little too English and polite, and the rhino masks are too literal and pantomimic. The third act scenes between Berenger and the loyal Daisy (Zawe Ashton) are the weakest part of Crimp’s script and the most tentatively played.
Cumberbatch is a brilliant actor, but he’s far too modest in this knockout role. The company includes fine contributions from Lloyd Hutchinson as an officious pen-pusher in a black beret, Paul Chahidi as a comic rationalist and Jacqueline Defferary as the hysterical housewife whose trampled pussy cat is the first sign of the rhino revolution.
What is wrong with the critics? This is one of the best shows all year, an astonishing achievement. - Joesmith
10 Dec 07
Well I liked the Rhinoceros, but after two and a half hours struggling with this piece I ended up with a sore arse, and nothing else! Too much time and effort to say too little. Best to have left it in the cupboard. - rds
04 Dec 07
Three stars, but only just - and that's for the performances and the realistically-designed rhinos, not the play itself. The audience score nul points: a bunch of sweet wrapper-rustling, whispering, seat-kicking morons, many of whom giggled uncontrollably at every other line. - Andrew B
09 Oct 07
I have to disagree. I was expecting it to be overlong and laboured but was suprised by the excellent pacing, moving subtley from farce to menace and near despair. Two images towards the end have stayed with me. Perhaps the arguments put forward are confusing and contradictory but that makes things more morally challenging. I think it makes more than one point in its two hours, about different choices and their consequences. It gives no simple answers, and very little hope.
The acting is excellent and the set is stunning, working with the text rather than dazzling the eye.
Well worth comparing with the upcoming parallel production of The Arsonists which I think is a weaker play. - Bert
06 Oct 07
A wonderfully acted, fascinating evening thoroughly enjoyable. It is indeed verbose but the dialogue has excellent pace and is brilliantly delivered and Rhinoceros is also witty and thrilling. Jean's transformation is a breath-taking example of the finest physical acting and whilst I have a few issues with some of the staging at the start of act two the ensemble work is perfect. For our party of six aged 25 -55 the evening sped by. - Carrie Cohen
04 Oct 07
A wonderfully acted, fascinating evening thoroughly enjoyable. It is indeed verbose but the dialogue has excellent pace and is brilliantly delivered and Rhinoceros is also witty and thrilling. Jean's transformation is a breath-taking example of the finest physical acting and whilst I have a few issues with some of the staging at the start of act two the ensemble work is perfect. For our party of six aged 25 -55 the evening sped by. - Carrie Cohen
04 Oct 07
You can't fault Dominic Cooke's production or a set of fine performances lead by Benedict Cumberbach and Jasper Britton, but 2.5 hours is a long time to make one point. Almost 50 years on, the play comes over as dreadfully laboured and verbose. The extrordinary talent on display could surely find a more worthy play? - Gareth James
The first theatre opened as The New Chelsea on 16 Apr 1870. Changed name to Belgravia. Re-opened as Royal Court 25 Jan 1871. Demolished in 1887. New theatre opened (current, slightly different site) 24 Sep 1888. Famous for supporting and commissioning new writing. Probably the first UK Theatre to regularly include their URL in advertising. Member of the Society of London Theatre. In 1996 the theatre closed for redevelopment, funded by the National Lottery. The refurbished theatre at Sloane Square re-opened in February 2000 including two theatres the 389 seat Jerwood Theatre Downstairs and the studio style Jerwood Theatre Upstairs.
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