Review: Rhinoceros

The Tab reviews Minotaur Theatre Company’s last production of the year, Rhinoceros.

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UEA’s Drama Studio has been busy lately, and last Thursday was Minotaur Theatre Company’s contribution of Rhinoceros. Written by Eugene Ionesco in 1959 (translation by Martin Crimp), the play deals with conformity, humanity, the manipulation of thought and, well, rhinoceroses.

The first act opened confidently, preset with a few tables and some live music to create a quaint, French square into which two characters enter. They’re both late, the protagonist, Berenger (James Ferguson), because he’s a perpetually unpunctual, hungover mess, and his good friend Jean (Lewis Garvey), because he’s accustomed to – but still immensely irritated by – Berenger’s alcoholism and timekeeping.

Rhinoceros is dialogue heavy and immediately philosophical, basing most of its entertainment in the script’s wit. This made tight pacing and immaculate timing integral to performance and was, in the first act, done successfully. With most of the cast on stage, live music playing, and a sung, choreographed scene transition, there was a lot for the audience to engage with.

As the play progressed, the themes got darker and scenes tended to be quite prolonged, involving only two or three characters. This was when the energy from the earlier, busier scenes was needed most – to combat the density of the script. Instead, things became a little monotonous, characters remaining on the same emotional planes, leaving the performance feeling underdeveloped. It almost felt more suited to radio with its overwhelming amount of dialogue; the play was clever, but as theatre it didn’t seem quite lively enough to captivate the audience. This wasn’t helped by the romance of the story, between Daisy (Ellie Woodruff-Bryant) and Berenger, which was somewhat inexplicable and therefore difficult to invest in.

Nonetheless, there were some moments of visual brilliance. Lewis Garvey and Beej Harris’s transformations from humans into rhinoceroses were both incredibly accomplished, their physicality and growls and grunts extraordinary to watch and impressively convincing, the effect strengthened with recorded sound and green body paint.

Rhinoceros was certainly a challenging choice for Minotaur, but considering the few obvious line slips as well as the pace issues, it felt underprepared. That being said, particular mention should go to Ben Rogers for his clean, well-timed portrayal of the Logician, and James Ferguson for tackling such an immense role so confidently – most impressively so in the frenetic last few scenes.

With this Absurd comedy, it was good to see such a careful and professional approach to humour, the symbolic rhinos never compromised for cheap laughs, and the script’s metaphysical concerns translated quite devotedly onto the stage. Unfortunately, the performance was slow and dragged towards the end, raising questions of whether the direction had been adventurous enough, especially in terms of the fascinating physical presence of the rhinos.