RHINOCEROS

(Pic by Val Adamson: Lungame Malo plays Berenger)

Eugene Ionesco’s iconic French Theatre-of-the Absurd play about social conformity for DUT.

Under the direction of Lloyd O'Connor, Rhinoceros, Eugene Ionesco’s iconic French Theatre-of-the Absurd play about social conformity, will feature a cast of 35 Durban University of Technology (DUT) undergraduates when it is staged on September 1.

Rhinoceros takes place in a small village where locals pass the time and passionately debate the issues of the day. The everyman character, Berenger, is a laid-back drunk and a cafe regular. One by one the people around literally morph into rhinoceroses, until ultimately he is the only villager still in human form.

This watershed drama and dark comedy is a fascinating, wry and disturbing study of the “pack mentality” - man’s ability to indiscriminately embrace violence, force and conformity without question. Ionesco was profoundly influenced by the events which led to the outbreak of the Second World War and the alarming rise of Communism and Fascism in Europe. In a more contemporary context, the psychology behind this production could just as easily inform phenomena such as religious cults, neo-Nazism or xenophobia.

Berenger’s struggle of identity is ultimately pure philosophy – about holding onto one’s integrity and sense of being in a world where all others have succumbed to the new status quo – in this case the perceived “beauty” of the rhinoceros.

In an often-quoted interview in French newspaper, Le Monde (January 17, 1960), Ionesco is quoted as saying: “I have been very much struck by what one might call the current of opinion, by its rapid evolution, its power of contagion, which is that of a real epidemic. People allow themselves suddenly to be invaded by a new religion, a doctrine, a fanaticism…. At such moments we witness a veritable mental mutation. I don’t know if you have noticed it, but when people no longer share your opinions, when you can no longer make yourself understood by them, one has the impression of being confronted with monsters—rhinos, for example. They have that mixture of candour and ferocity. They would kill you with the best of consciences.”

Ionesco's primary purpose in writing Rhinoceros was not simply to criticize the horrors of fascism, communism or Nazism, but to explore the mentality of those who so easily succumbed to brainwashing against evidence of better judgement. He asks the question: what was it that allowed them to rationalise away their free thought and to subvert their own free will? What traits in the individual allow him to be snowballed by general opinion? Why is it necessary to believe the same thing that everyone else believes?

Rhinoceros runs in the DUT’s Courtyard Theatre, Steve Biko Campus, from September 1 to 4 at 19h00. Entrance Fee: R20. More information from Lebohang Sibisi on 031 373 2194.