Rhinoceros

by Eugene Ionesco

Produced by Kate Bredeson (director) and Caitlin Cisek (scenographer)

Sound design by Ryan Gamblin and Adam Smith

Bérenger finds himself increasingly alone as his friends, work colleagues, and neighbors one by one turn into rhinoceroses. Set in a small French town, Eugène Ionesco’s play takes a classic form to tell his jarring story of accumulation. Through the lens of the pandemic and Revolution of 2020, immigrant Ionesco’s tale speaks to a variety of spreads, including fascism, white supremacy, and viral contagion. Reed Theatre shares this story with you as a serial that will unfold over three weeks, itself mirroring the accumulation narrative of the play. In the moment of its first production, 1960, Rhinoceros was a dazzling display of what Martin Esslin called the Theatre of the Absurd—seventy years later, and through Martin Crimp’s fresh translation, Ionesco’s warning speaks louder than ever.

Act I is presented as a podcast with images, Act II as a graphic novel on-screen, and Act III as a filmed Zoom play.

The complete work can be found here.