Rhinoceros

[psocoptera]

Rhinoceros at the ART. A deeply weird play by Eugène Ionesco about, I guess, the seductive power of animal transformation as a metaphor for fascism. Two hours of fast-paced shouting, notably John Turturro and Paul Giamatti shouting at each other and Tatiana Maslany not getting enough lines, Giamatti absolutely owning his rhinofication, Tatiana Maslany getting more lines but them not making a lot of sense, and John Turturro trying to find the emotional beat that will finally let him get off the stage. (No, I mean, he was great, the last act in particular just felt like a speedrun of maybe too many different things for them to all land.) I thought they did a better job making the rhinoceroses feel present in the theater than their Moby Dick did with Moby Dick, which I think was the last play I saw involving a threatening large animal just offstage.

Comments

Ooh!

[vardibidian]

Ooh! I was tempted to come up and see that—it's one of my favorite scripts, as frustrating as it is. And it's too bad about the shoutiness—I honestly think one of the challenges of directing the thing is to find ways to make it less shouty while still keeping the fear-and-tension level high.

I felt like the Fascism-warning metaphor would have been more topical ten years ago, but still.