The production of “Rhinoceros,” a 1959 play by Romanian-French playwright Eugène Ionesco (1909-1994), on stage at American Repertory Theater, is a masterpiece.
Directed by A.R.T. artistic director Diane Paulus, the darkly comic satire uses the deeply human art of live theater to tell Ionesco’s parable of ordinary people who abandon their humanity and become beasts.
Ionesco had witnessed the embrace of extremist mass ideologies such as Romania’s fascist Iron Guard and Stalin’s brutal totalitarianism by ordinary people lured by the power of conformity, which Ionesco spoke of as “the annihilation of all that is the human spirit.”
“Rhinoceros” is the final production by Paulus at the Loeb Drama Center. In May, she will direct the A.R.T.’s inaugural show at its new home in Allston, “Life on Mars,” with the music of David Bowie.
For “Rhinoceros,” Paulus has orchestrated a starry ensemble of artists and actors. The superb eight-member cast includes John Turturro, who proposed the play to Paulus, recognizing its timeliness in this era of polarizing extremes; Paul Giamatti; and Tatiana Maslany.
The staging team includes scenic designer Riccardo Hernández and lighting designer Jen Schriever with costumes by Anita Yavich, sound design by Fitz Patton and special effects by Markus Maurette.
Their talents converge to create a production that draws in audiences with multisensory immediacy, humor and horror. Every element counts and every moment matters in the A.R.T. adaptation, which runs two hours with one 15-minute intermission.
Ionesco’s metaphor for mindless conformity is a large, lumbering horned beast with a green hide and a small brain. None are visible here except for an occasional horn. Instead, the audience watches as each character transforms from human to beast in his or her own way.
Turturro is Bérenger, the sole character to resist this metamorphosis; Giamatti plays Jean, Bérenger’s longtime friend; and Maslany is Daisy, a gentle typist who cares for Bérenger.
The play begins in the orderly setting of a town square: Between a café with curtains and a grocery store stands a New England colonial meeting house with a tiny cross atop its spire. Here and throughout, Schriever’s lighting captures telling details and wordless micromoments as well as the larger elements in a scene.
First in view is the unlikely hero, Bérenger, sprawled on the ground in front of the café, stirring from a drunken sleep. He is soon joined by Jean, presented by Giamatti as an utterly respectable gentleman outfitted in a bowler hat, suit and cane. While being served by Clay Singer, the cafe’s silent waiter, the two launch a high-energy, vaudevillian conversation. A joy to witness, their rapid-fire exchanges conjure the rapport of old friends despite their different lifestyles.
A panorama of neighbors assembles gradually, including the strutting Housewife (Harriett D. Foy), spectacular in a purple dress accessorized by the furry white cat she carries along with her shopping bag. She flirts with the grocer (Peter Francis James), who hands her a baguette with a phallic flip while his wife (Kristine Nielsen) grimaces. En route to work are the impeccably tailored Dudard (Alex Ross) and Maslany’s Daisy, attired in a simple dress.
Suddenly this portrait of daily life is torn apart by thunderous rumbling and clouds of dust. The neighbors are stunned to see a rhinoceros charging by. A circus escapee? But their town has no circus. In the wake of the stampeding beast, the housewife’s cat is crushed. In a display of kindness, her neighbors gather to comfort her. When back on her feet, the housewife’s eyes signal the beleaguered wife to pick up her spilled groceries for her. Meanwhile, the shocked townspeople debate – did the rhino have one horn or two? Was it from Asia or Africa?
The scene shifts to an office that produces legal publications. The boss, Papillon (Peter Francis James), asks upwardly mobile Dudard about a report. Daisy, a typist, shoves away Papillon’s invasive hands and covers for Bérenger, who arrives late and joins the chatty Botard (Singer) in correcting proofs.
The workplace too is disrupted as a shrieking Mrs. Boeuf (the ever expressive Kristine Nielsen) rushes in announcing that her husband, now a rhino, implores her to join him. Soon a rhinoceros is spotted wearing Mrs. Boeuf’s hat.
The A.R.T. crafted its production working with its own translation from the French original and an English translation by Derek Prouse. The adaptation restores the lively pace and cadences of Ionesco’s text, in which speech is not only a means of communication but also an object to observe. Singsong phrases are often repeated and, like the increasingly dissonant music that accompanies shifts of scene, erratic speech patterns signal that matters are becoming amiss.
As townspeople adapt to the growing presence of the rhinos, they grow attuned to what they believe is the language of the beasts from the sounds of static on a vintage portable radio. For the increasingly seduced human listeners, it is an irresistible siren call (“Truth Social,” anyone?) into their bestial futures.
Meanwhile, metal bedframes pile up, no longer of use to their former owners.
“Rhinoceros” at the American Repertory Theater’s 64 Brattle St., Harvard Square, Cambridge, through Sept. 27.
