This avant-garde,
dark comedy was written by Eugene Ionesco (translated by Derek Prouse), produced
by Cleaver Enough theatre and directed, as a staged reading, by Valerie Asbell
(Founder of Cleaver Enough). Because of
many unforeseen circumstances, this two-three week run of a full production
ended up as only one night as a staged reading.
For more information on future plans of the company, go to their site at
www.cleverenough.org
Imagine a
circumstance where an incompetent, egomaniacal boob stands up in front of you,
spewing out utter nonsense and promising to fulfill this blather if he were
King. Then imagine a circumstance where
this nitwit is offered just such a position, and his herds of followers bow to his
every whim, and blindly accept every blathering he utters. Soon they are espousing his “holey” words as
truth, even as the world they knew and loved collapses around them. In the end, he leads them to a cliff and
proclaims they should all jump. In this
setting, those beings are called lemmings, in this incarnation of them in this
play, they are called Rhinos.
And, even though,
this play was written many years ago, it still has a prophetic ring nowadays,
which is, in part, why Asbell chose this show.
In it, we see the beginning of a collapse of a society in which to
survive, one must conform. Berenger
(Andrew Hallas) is a bit of a lazy, drunken no-good-nik. His friend, Jean (Alex Albrecht), on the
other hand, is a fastidious neat-nik.
But changes are about to occur.
An illness (snort) overtakes Jean and he begins to change into what the
village has been recently over-run by, an ignorant beast.
In time, the Jean he
knew, has evaporated. Only a co-worker,
Dudard (Rian Turner) and Berenger’s girlfriend, Daisy (Emily Smith), seem
uninfected, but soon the grunting (snort, snort) of these mindless minions
sounds like a sweet lullaby to them. In
the end, he might be the last man standing against this onslaught of ignorance
and blind conformity with no self-identity left. If such a silly event should occur in real
life, of course, we’d all be smart enough to see through such nonsense,
wouldn’t we?! (snort, grunt…!)
It’s unfortunate that
this difficult and timely show will not see the light of day at this point
because the cast is quite good (others of the townspeople consist of KJ
McElrath, Terry Lybecker, Leilani Oleari, Kate Belden, Brent McMorris, Katy
Philip, Neil Wade Freer, John Bryant, Troy Sawyer, Athena McElrath, Shaun
Patrick Hennessey, and Mark Milner). This
is not an easy show, even for a seasoned production company, to do, so it is
daring for a novice theatre to tackle it.
But Ashbell has done a very fine job of casting it and has some clever
touches in the interpretation and presentation of it. They do deserve a chance to shine, so hope
they continue to scour the town for an appropriate space to perform and backing
for their shows. Hope to see more of
them in the future!
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