Jonathan J. Miner
Stacey Gabarski (left) and Nick Kaprelian.
In a French provincial town, two friends are having a drink at an outdoor café when suddenly a rhinoceros stampedes through the village square.
The friends abruptly stop talking. Shopkeepers and villages gather around to gawk. But instead of alarm or distress, all the crowd can muster is “Well, of all things.” This expression so encapsulates the public’s passive response to a clear threat, it occurs in the play 26 times.
This is the first of many instances when Berenger, a somewhat slovenly copy editor at the local newspaper with a weakness for liquor, is the lone person in the play who responds with appropriate alarm. This disconnect between identifying danger but refusing to act to stop it is the crux of Eugène Ionesco’s play Rhinoceros. Strollers Theatre presents a capable production of the absurdist drama at the Bartell Theatre through Nov. 18.
Held up as a classic parable about the spread of Nazism and fascism in Europe in the years between the World Wars, Ionesco wrote the play based on his own experiences. He grew up French-Jewish in Romania under the shadow of the violent, ultra-nationalist Iron Guard, and later in Nazi-occupied France. In our current political climate where racist, anti-Semitic, ultra-right wing groups are committing violent acts with little official rebuke, it’s painfully easy to see parallels.
As disturbing as the rampaging rhinos are, people’s apathetic reaction to them is far more terrifying. The villagers first dismiss the rhinos as an anomaly. Then they focus on the minutiae of whether the animals are Asian or African, one horned or two, instead of doing something to stop them. Some blame the reports of rhinos on fake news. Others are unwilling to condemn the rhinos because “Who’s to say what’s evil?”
As the story grows steadily more bizarre, the audience clings to the clear-eyed Berenger, portrayed by Stacey Garbarski in a knock-out performance. The energy and urgency she brings to the dizzying role propels the production forward and gives it focus. As her fear ratchets up, so does ours.
Director Katherine Johnson and her team solve the issue of how to portray herds of rhinos with spot-on sound effects by Claire Kannapell and a dozen oversized origami-style animal heads. The masks are more than enough to evince the menacing creatures, frightening in both their numbers and their anonymous uniformity.
The clever set, created by Coleman, gives actors several playing areas and helps keep static scenes interesting. It is especially effective in the final moments, when the rhinos line up on the raised, curved platform, leaving Berenger alone in the “pit” below, as if she were a caged animal in a zoo.
The actors keep the dialogue moving at a clip, but the play still feels at least half an hour too long. A silent rhino chorus going through some slow tai-chi choreography quickly loses its power. But these are minor quibbles about a show that has been on my mind for a year. One year exactly.
