Rhinoceros

Synopsis This is an absurdist play written by Eugene Ionesco in 1959. Over the course of three acts, the inhabitants of a small, provincial French town turn into rhinoceroses; ultimately the only human who does not succumb to this mass metamorphosis is the central character, Bérenger, a flustered everyman figure who is initially criticized in the play for his drinking, tardiness, and scruffy lifestyle and then, later, for his increasing paranoia and obsession with the rhinoceroses. The play explores the themes of conformity, culture, fascism, responsibility, logic, mass movements, philosophy and morality. The Students have been faithful to the plot, presented in English with a modern cut.