The Rhinoceros
Premiere date
Sunday, March 05, 2006
The Rhinoceros
by Eugen Ionescu
Directed by Gábor Tompa
Translated by: Vlad Russo & Vlad Zografi
Costumes: Carmencita Brojboiu
Set Design: Helmut Stürmer
Choreography: Florin Fieroiu
Cast: Marian Râlea, Zsolt Bogdan, Ofelia Popii, Rodica Mărgărit, Dana Taloş, Cristina Flutur, Adrian Matioc, Pali Vecsei, Cătălin Pătru, Mihai Coman, Viorel Raţă, Gelu Potzolli
The Choir: Ionela Acasandrei, Florin Coşuleţ, Diana Fufezan, Raluca Iani, Laura Ilea, Adrian Neacşu, Cătălin Neghină, Eduard Pătraşcu, Veronica Popescu, Cristina Stoleriu, Codruţa Vasiu, Ema Veţean.
In "Rhinoceros", I have tried to show how the collective delirium, the collective blindness become possible and how a certain truth can be saved, preserved intact, in an individual conscience. It is very possible for the Rhinoceros to become misunderstood - I hope - in a world where all the people will be lucid, will have a free personality, a freedom of thought, without being separated from one another. In that moment, it will not be understood what I wanted to say. Or it will be attempted to decode it as if a document from a past time. I hope this is how it will happen.
(Eugen Ionesco)
The purpose of the play has been precisely to depict the process of a country's „nazification", but also the astoundment of the one who, allergically towards the corruption, witnesses the mental metamophosis of his collectivity. "The Rhinoceros" is probably the most tragic of Ionesco's plays which, in spite of being written in the context of the nazi outbreak, it has not become, unfortunately, dated and it rings in our ear as a cry of great validity in a world which attempts again the homogenisation, the globalisation and human cloning. A subject among Ionesco's favourites, the decomposition of human language and human thinking springs here with a generalising strength, drawing upon itself one of the most tragic events of our century: the complete overturn of human values and the extinction of culture.
(Gábor Tompa)
Photos by Scott Eastman