ABSTRACT

Unpacking the Individual: A Director’s Approach to Ionesco’s Rhinoceros

Chad Landon Kennedy, M.F.A.

Chairperson: Stan Denman, Ph.D.

In 1959, French-Romanian playwright Eugene Ionesco debuted his play,

Rhinoceros, and the theatergoing world was captivated by the curious image of people

turning into pachyderms. This fable about herd mentality and being comfortable in one’s

own skin is continually timely, as humans and rhinos often pit people against the pack.

While critics have pointed to historic inspirations for the script for years, the play is more

effective as an individual exploration of what it means to be human. Like much of

Ionesco’s work, it reveals a strong concern for individualism and upholding human

dignity. This thesis examines the production process that brought Rhinoceros to the

Baylor University stage in December 2019 for a weeklong run. It explores the

playwright’s life and work, as well as historical productions of the play, before turning

attention to the directorial analysis of the script. Directing concepts and production designs are then outlined to trace the development of the play from rehearsals through

performances to highlight lessons learned throughout the collaborative process. Unpacking the Individual: A Director's Approach to Ionesco's Rhinoceros

by

Chad Landon Kennedy, B.A., B.S., M.A.

A Thesis

Approved by the Department of Theatre Arts

DeAnna Toten Beard, Ph.D., Chairperson

Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of Baylor University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Fine Arts

Approved by the Thesis Committee

Stan Denman, Ph.D., Chairperson

David Jortner, Ph.D.

DeAnna Toten Beard, Ph.D.

Steven Pounders, M.F.A.

Theresa Kennedy, Ph.D.

Sha Towers, M.L.I.S.

Accepted by the Graduate School May 2020

J. Larry Lyon, Ph.D., Dean

Page bearing signatures is kept on file in the Graduate School.

Copyright © 2020 by Chad Landon Kennedy

All rights reserved TABLE OF CONTENTS

LIST OF FIGURES ...... vi ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ...... viii CHAPTER ONE ...... 1 The Playwright and the Play ...... 1 Introduction ...... 1 Ionesco’s Early Years ...... 1 Ionesco, The Playwright ...... 8 Theatre of the Absurd ...... 11 Ionesco’s Genres ...... 16 Advocating for the Individual ...... 19 Rhinoceros Roots and Inspiration ...... 24 Rhinoceros on the World Stage ...... 25 Conclusion ...... 32 CHAPTER TWO ...... 33 Analyzing the Play ...... 33 Introduction ...... 33 Ionesco’s Explanation ...... 34 Graphing the Script ...... 37 Another Day, Another Rhinoceros ...... 42 Rhinoceros Transformations ...... 44 The People in the Street ...... 47 Office Protocol ...... 51 Rhinos in the House, or A Rhino’s Natural Habitat ...... 58 A Family of Rhinos is Called a Crash ...... 62 The Last Man Standing ...... 68 Conclusion ...... 74 CHAPTER THREE ...... 75 The Design Process ...... 75 Introduction ...... 75 A Note on the Production Calendar ...... 75 Directing Concept ...... 76 A Note on Collaborative Procedure ...... 80

iv Time and Place ...... 81 Scenic Design...... 82 Lighting Design ...... 94 Sound Design ...... 101 Costume Design ...... 103 Properties ...... 107 Conclusion ...... 109 CHAPTER FOUR ...... 111 The Rehearsal Process ...... 111 Introduction ...... 111 Auditions ...... 112 First Rehearsal and Read-Through ...... 117 Blocking Rehearsals ...... 119 Truthful Acting, Not Absurd ...... 123 A Note on Memorization ...... 125 The Designer Run ...... 127 Inviting Guests Early ...... 131 Vocal Development and Listening ...... 136 Rhino School ...... 141 Play Time ...... 144 Cue-to-Cue and Transitions ...... 146 Growing the Show Over Break ...... 148 Conclusion ...... 149 CHAPTER FIVE ...... 151 Production Assessment ...... 151 Introduction ...... 151 How the Scenes Played ...... 151 Actor-Director Collaboration ...... 159 Designer-Director Collaboration ...... 162 Conclusion ...... 163 APPENDIX ...... 166 Select Production Photos ...... 166 BIBLIOGRAPHY ...... 184

v LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 3.1. (Key research illustration for set design)...... 83 Figure 3.2. (Inspiration collage of midcentury modern architecture) ...... 86 Figure 3.3. (Ground plan for Act One) ...... 87 Figure 3.4. (Production photo of the neighborhood street in Act One) ...... 87 Figure 3.5. (Ground plan for Act Two, Scene One) ...... 88 Figure 3.6. (Production photo of the office in Act Two, Scene One) ...... 88 Figure 3.7. (Ground plan for Act Two, Scene Two) ...... 89 Figure 3.8. (Production photo of Jean’s apartment in Act Two, Scene Two) ...... 89 Figure 3.9. (Ground plan for Act Three) ...... 90 Figure 3.10. (Production photo of Berenger’s apartment in Act Three) ...... 90 Figure 3.11. (Research image of contrasting shadows) ...... 96 Figure 3.12. (Production photo of the Jean’s beginning transformation) ...... 97 Figure 3.13. (Production photo of the Jean’s full rhinoceros silhouette) ...... 97 Figure 3.14. (Research image of footlight face shadows) ...... 98 Figure 3.15. (Research images of casting multiple shadows from one subject) ...... 100 Figure 3.16. (Renderings of each of Jean’s costume designs) ...... 107 Figure A.1. (Jean and Berenger see a rhinoceros in the distance.) ...... 166 Figure A.2. (“Oh, a rhinoceros!”) ...... 166 Figure A.3. (The Logician and the Old Gentleman feel rumblings.) ...... 167 Figure A.4. (Colorful costumes in Act One.)...... 167 Figure A.5. (Jean makes a speech.) ...... 168 Figure A.6. (Berenger was blocked to break away.) ...... 168 Figure A.7. (Warm tones and multiple levels of the office.) ...... 169 Figure A.8. (Botard and Papillon disregard Daisy’s testimony.) ...... 169 Figure A.9. (Mrs. Boeuf’s entrance.) ...... 170 Figure A.10. (A portion of the staircase collapses.) ...... 170 Figure A.11. (Mrs. Boeuf recognizes the trumpeting call of her husband.) ...... 171 Figure A.12. (The Fireman enters from the upstairs window.) ...... 171 Figure A.13. (Costumed crew members rearrange set pieces.) ...... 172 Figure A.14. (An example of lighting during a transition segment.) ...... 172 Figure A.15. (The elderly couple greet Berenger.) ...... 173 Figure A.16. (Jean has a bump.) ...... 173 Figure A.17. (Jean begins his change from the offstage kitchen.) ...... 174 Figure A.18. (Jean reveals rhinoceros skin.) ...... 174 Figure A.19. (Jean’s costume has added layers of padding.)...... 175 Figure A.20. (Jean changes inside the bathroom before emerging as a rhino.) ...... 175 Figure A.21. (Rhino herd costumes show conformity.)...... 176 Figure A.22. (The herd of rhinoceroses chase Berenger before intermission.) ...... 176 Figure A.23. (Dudard and Berenger wear muted costumes in the second act.) ...... 177

vi Figure A.24. (Berenger gets sick on animal crackers.) ...... 177 Figure A.25. (The Act Three love triangle.) ...... 178 Figure A.26. (The final three humans look out the window.) ...... 178 Figure A.27. (Berenger and Daisy distract each other with sock puppets.) ...... 179 Figure A.28. (The floodlights increased intensity for the final couple.)...... 179 Figure A.29. (Berenger compares his face to photographs.) ...... 180 Figure A.30. (Berenger’s final monologue against a backdrop of rhinos.) ...... 181 Figure A.31. (A rhino shadow looms over Berenger’s final plea.) ...... 181 Figure A.32. (A scrim obscures the rhino heard lit from both sides.) ...... 182 Figure A.33. (Dual views of rhinos in the house during Berenger’s final line.) ...... 182 Figure A.34. (“I’m not capitulating!”) ...... 183 Figure A.35. (Actors remove their rhino masks for the curtain call.) ...... 183

vii

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Theatre is a collaborative art form, and if one did not know any better, one might assume that only means onstage. However, the performance is just the public part. This thesis is the result of the gracious, selfless investments of my mentors, professors, colleagues, and collaborators within the Baylor University Theatre Department. You are some of the most giving and courageous people I know. Thanks for sharing your creativity, support, talent, and wisdom with me these past three years. You challenge me to be better and to continue to grow. We’re just getting started.

viii

To Team Kennedy – This is for you. Thanks for helping me be me.

ix

CHAPTER ONE

The Playwright and the Play

Introduction

Eugene Ionesco’s rise to prominence as a pioneering twentieth century playwright

did not follow a predictable path. A lover of solitude with a challenging childhood and

lacking a sense of home, Ionesco often found himself observing society from the outside.

His particular upbringing contributed to a unique worldview that placed a high value on

the individual. Ionesco’s regard for individuality affected all aspects of his creative life

and prompted him to use playwriting to explore his own point of view. Although based

on personal experiences and questions, his scripts were designed to encourage unique

individual responses among audience members. Individualism also became a prominent

recurrent theme across his body of work, and it particularly informs the plot, dialogue, and imagery of Rhinoceros. The aim of this chapter will be to explore how the theme of individuality guided Ionesco’s life and work, with particular emphasis on the creation of

Rhinoceros. It will conclude with comparisons of various international debut productions of Rhinoceros with attention to how each production explored or neglected themes of individuality.

Ionesco’s Early Years

As a playwright, Ionesco is regarded for having a view of the world that is insightful, observant, and detached. He developed this unique point of view long before becoming a writer. He explained,

1

“I learned to be alone very early, because I did not think what others thought. My deepest nature prevented me. But solitude is not isolation, it is not a barrier separating me from the world, it is a shield, a cuirass, which can defend my liberty, which allows me to keep a cool head in spite of the fiery furnace into which I am hurled by my rages, my repulsions, my terrors. I still communicate with others across the barrier, as far as is possible.”1

His childhood was marked by circumstantial experiences that brought about significant

fears and feelings of otherness. Born Eugen Ionescu on November 26, 19092 in Slatina,

Romania to parents Eugen and Therese Ipcar Ionescu; his family relocated to Paris

shortly after his birth, for his father to study law.3 In a 1961 broadcast interview with

Radio-Canada’s Judith Jasmin, he explained,

My father left for Romania when I was six…The war was still on. There were Big Berthas and planes flying over the city. They scared us silly…terribly so. A child's fears, not nightmares. Real fear. Once a shell from a Big Bertha fell in Vogirard Square, 40 meters from our home. We lived on the sixth floor of a small hotel.4

Such sobering experiences at a young age prompted Ionesco to mature quickly, as was

the case for many children in occupied areas. Living with his mother at wartime in Paris

made an emotional impact on the young man, no doubt calling his attention to life’s finiteness through personal fears. When asked about the effects of these specific childhood experiences, he explained, “I also feel in constant danger. I’m never completely at ease with either myself or the world around me…I feel more lonely with

1 Eugene Ionesco, Fragments of a Journal, trans. Jean Stewart (New York: Paragon House, 1990), 107.

2 After gaining attention as a writer in his forties, he began to publicize his birthdate as 1912 in order to appear younger, only to return to his true birthdate as he approached his eighties.

3 Carl Rollyson, ed., Notable Playwrights Volume 2 (Pasadena: Salem Press, 2005), 502.

4 Eugene Ionesco, interview by Judith Jasmin, aired 1961, on Radio-Canada., DVD (Freemantle, Western Australia: Contemporary Arts Media). 2

others around.”5 Ionesco’s mother assumed that his father died serving in the war, but he

worked for the police and survived only to cut ties, arrange a divorce, remarry, and win

custody of the children. This meant that Eugene and his younger sister Marilina were

forced to relocate to Romania in 1925 to live with his father and stepmother. French was

Ionesco’s first language, but this abrupt change forced him to learn to communicate in

Romanian, which contributed further to his sense of isolation. This feeling of detachment

would resurface through his literary characters and themes. Ionesco scholar Rosette C.

Lamont said, “A French boy in Romania, a Romanian in France, its author could never

adhere to any national group, or political party. He was a man of no place and every

place, but his true homeland was literature.” 6 Thus, experiencing life outside of society

became a normal vantage point for Ionesco from an early age.

A year after her children moved in with their father, Ionesco’s mother returned to

Romania, and shortly thereafter, both children fled their father’s house to live with her. It

was suggested that Ionesco left after a particularly violent conflict with his father, which was one of only several disagreements between the two throughout his life.7 By 1928,

Ionesco had finished secondary school and was living with his aunt. His father refused to

pay child support but used his influence to help Eugene attend the University of

Bucharest with scholarships. Ionesco fought his father to study literature, instead of

engineering, and ultimately pursued a degree in French.8 Ionesco submitted poems and

5 Ionesco, interview by Jasmin.

6 Rosette C. Lamont, Ionesco’s Imperatives: The Politics of Culture (Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 1996), 139.

7 Gabrielle H Cody and Evert Sprinchorn, eds., The Columbia Encyclopedia of Modern Drama (New York: Columbia University Press, 2007), 690.

8 Rollyson, 502-503. 3 essays to Romanian literary journals, and in 1934, he achieved notoriety by publishing his pamphlet No!, which was a series of essays criticizing and satirizing revered

Romanian writers. In his critical biography, Richard Coe claimed:

His ideal medium was not the drama, but rather, from the beginning, the pungent, witty, merciless, critical essay; during the years of his most feverish dramatic activity, he never stopped turning out the controversial, philosophical and plain vitriolic articles; and even today [1971] he still continues to pour out essays, memoirs and confessions, political diatribes and critical controversies, notes, counternotes and even children’s stories.9

While continuing to write for literary journals, Ionesco taught French at secondary schools and married his former classmate, a philosophy student named Rodica Burileanu in 1936. 10 Two years later, he obtained a grant to study the themes of sin and death in

French poetry in Paris, beginning with Baudelaire. It is unknown how much of this work was actually completed, and some sources suggest it was none. 11 He returned to Romania after the start of World War II but ultimately settled in France with his wife when their immigration papers cleared in 1942. In 1944, Rodica gave birth to their daughter, Marie-

France. Ionesco worked in a variety of literary capacities, as a translator, editor, teacher, and journalist during this time.12 He also broke off ties with his father because his father blindly embraced radical ideologies. 13

Lamont says, “In his journals, Ionesco accuses [his father] the clever attorney of collaborating with every passing regime, including the Fascists and the Communists.

9 Richard N. Coe, Ionesco: A Study of His Plays (London: Methuen and Company, 1971), 23.

10 Rollyson, 502-503.

11 Cody and Sprinchorn, 690.

12 Rollyson, 502-503.

13 Cody and Sprinchorn, 690. 4

Because of his father’s authoritarian stance, Ionesco associated his progenitor with the

police states he eagerly served.” 14 Watching his father enthusiastically follow totalitarian

leadership deeply affected Ionesco, and he would later process feelings of shame and

anger through his dramatic characters. Lamont interviewed Ionesco while he was visiting

New York for the opening of Rhinoceros on Broadway in 1960. He explained to her,

“There were those who rationalized their chameleonic transformations, men like my father. His legal training enabled him to justify all his shifts of allegiance. He was an instinctive Hegelian: to him History was Truth and Truth History.”15 His father’s shifts in allegiance were initially troubling but became predictable, as the senior Ionescu sought power by aligning himself with whichever authorities were in control. The capricious nature of the father’s political allegiances were in step with the way he treated his family, unpredictably exiting and reentering their lives. Wounds from his father’s betrayals would later inform several of Ionesco’s plays, including Rhinoceros, Hunger and Thirst,

Victims of Duty, and his final dream play, Journeys among the Dead.

Before writing any of these plays, however, Ionesco worked as a proofreader for a legal publishing firm and began to study English.16 In an effort to improve his prospects

in the postwar job market, he purchased a popular book and record system for learning

English on his own time. The sample sentences and phrases from his lessons proved to be

a surprise source of inspiration. Charmed by the randomized nature of the practice

language exercises, Ionesco began to combine the phrases in a script, as the story goes.

14 Lamont, 96.

15 Ibid., 137.

16 Deborah B. Gaensbauer, Eugene Ionesco Revisited (New York: Twayne Publishers, 1996), 11. 5

The incoherent collection of words became a way to express the breakdown of

communication through nonsensical dialogue. The resulting play, entitled The Bald

Soprano, was Ionesco’s first; it was unlike anything he or French theatregoers had seen

before. According to Ionesco scholar, Deborah B. Gaensbauer, however, it is likely that

this story behind the creation of The Bald Soprano has been exaggerated over the years to

become more of a legend. It is also worth noting that the beginning of his playwriting

career was not the beginning of his literary career, as he had written scholarly essays and

short stories for years. 17 Nevertheless, The Bald Soprano debuted at the Theatre des

Noctambules in May of 1950 under the direction of novice director, Nicholas Bataille. It was steadily revised throughout the rehearsal process.18 The Bald Soprano features two

couples, the Smiths and the Martins, whose polite parlor room conversations devolve into non sequiturs and gibberish, with the Martins mistaking each other for strangers before realizing they were, in fact, husband and wife. Popular interpretations of the play point out its critique of the bourgeoisie, modern relationships, or ineffective communication in general. Ionesco explained, “[They] can no longer talk because they can no longer think; they can no longer think because they can no longer be moved, can no longer feel passions. They can no longer be; they can ‘become’ anybody, anything, for, having lost their identity, they assume the identity of others…they are interchangeable.”19 The

interchangeable quality of the characters, as well as their impersonal dialogue,

demonstrate both the superficial quality of social codes and a loss of personal identity.

17 Gaensbauer, 12.

18 Rollyson, 502-503.

19 Eugene Ionesco, “The Tragedy of Language: How an English Primer Became My First Play,” trans. Jack Undank, The Tulane Drama Review 4, no. 3 (March 1960), 10-13, accessed February 12, 2020, https://www.jstor.org/stable/1124841. 6

The initial run of the play lasted only six weeks and was not particularly popular

with crowds. On at least three occasions, when there were less than six people in the

audience, the actors issued refunds and went home early.20 Despite the premiere production’s middling reception, The Bald Soprano would go on to receive attention for taking theatrical risks and would become an example for those studying the emerging theatre of the French avant-garde. Ionesco found so much joy in watching his work come to life onstage that it prompted him to develop a career in playwriting. He said:

One cannot resist the desire of making appear, on a stage, characters that are at the same time real and invented. One cannot resist the need to make them speak, to make them live before our eyes. To incarnate phantasms, to give them life, is a prodigious, irreplaceable, adventure to such an extent that I myself was overcome when, during the rehearsals of my first play, I suddenly saw characters move on the stage who had come out of myself. I was frightened. By what right had I been able to do this? Was this allowed?…it was almost diabolical.21

He would go on to write over two dozen plays, many of which would further explore

themes of isolation and culture. He would also further experiment with conventions of

language and relationships, as he pioneered in The Bald Soprano.22 Ionesco’s first foray

into theatre was a singular and unconventional debut, as if he stumbled upon the artform.

His career would follow a similar path, guided by his unique, exploratory perspective

without either the guidance or limitations of a theatre establishment.

20 Martin Esslin, The Theatre of the Absurd (London: Bloomsbury, 2014), 108-109.

21 Eugene Ionesco, "Discovering the Theatre," trans. Leonard C. Pronko, The Tulane Drama Review 4, no. 1 (September 1959): 10, accessed January 13, 2020. https://www.jstor.org/stable/1124801.

22 Esslin, 109. 7

Ionesco, The Playwright

Ionesco wrote, “In my view, a playwright is a man who thinks by writing his

dramas or comedies just as the philosopher thinks by philosophizing…The dialogue and movement of the stage are the author’s particular way of exploring reality, of exploring

himself, of understanding things and understanding himself. 23 Ionesco had neither

training nor interest in crafting a well-made play, and his scripts were not plotted with a traditional narrative structure designed to make one particular point. Instead, he preferred to wrestle with ideas and process his own thoughts through the act of playwriting. Martin

Esslin explains, “It is not the conceptual, formulated moral that Ionesco tries to communicate, it is his experience, what it feels like to be in the situations concerned. It is precisely against the fallacy that the fruits of human experience can be transmitted in the form of pre-packed, neatly formulated conceptual pills that his theatre is directed.”24 This highlights how Ionesco emphasizes individual experience over shared narrative. He did not use the theatre to teach the audience a lesson he learned through personal experience.

Instead, he tried to offer the audience a similarly engaging experience to which they could respond and reflect in personal ways. Ionesco does not claim to have an answer to reveal; he is seeking answers himself and invites the audience to seek alongside him.

He explains, “A playwright simply writes plays, in which he can offer only a testimony, not a didactic message – a personal, affective testimony of his anguish and the anguish of others or, which is rare, of his happiness – or he can express his feelings,

23 Ionesco, Fragments of a Journal, 129.

24 Esslin, 154. 8 comic or tragic, about life.” 25 The word testimony carries connotations of individuality and authenticity, like an eyewitness account of someone replaying a problem that is yet to be solved. The theme of personal experience, or an individual’s point of view, proved to be a recurrent subject of much of Ionesco’s work. In this way, Ionesco shares personal observations with an audience through staged metaphors without offering explanations of what each symbol might mean. In his mind, sharing a definitive answer would need a straightforward medium, such as a novel or speech, but seeking an answer would need the exploratory nature of the stage. Ionesco went on to write twenty-eight plays; eleven are full-length, and seventeen are short plays. Key titles include The Lesson (1951), The

Chairs (1952), Victims of Duty (1953), Amedee, or How to Get Rid of It (1954), The New

Tenant (1955), The Killer (1958), Exit the King (1962), A Stroll in the Air (1963), and

Macbett (1972).

Through years of writing essays and extensive literary experience, Ionesco developed strong skills of verbal rhetoric, but playwrighting incited him to explore more imagistic writing for the stage. He explained, “I am not writing literature. I am doing something quite different: I am writing drama. I mean that my text is not just dialogue, but also ‘stage directions.’ These should be respected as much as the text, they are essential, they are also sufficient.” 26 Ionesco’s plays became known for bold visual metaphors tangibly portrayed onstage, and the visual elements were as critical as the spoken text, if not more. For example, Esslin explains,

The rhinoceroses [in Rhinoceros], the growing body of Amedee [the corpse in Amedee, or How to Get Rid of It], Berenger flying through the air [in A Stroll in

25 Eugene Ionesco, Notes and Counter Notes, trans. Donald Watson (New York: Grove Press, 1964), 90.

26 Ibid., 208. 9

the Air] – all seem to invite the spectator to work at pre-verbal, intuitive levels of perception. He is given various pieces of the jigsaw puzzle, but not until he leaves the theater does he realize that some of the pieces will never be found.27

Across his repertoire, Ionesco experimented with the possibilities of theatrical imagery

and spectacle. While he employed metaphors liberally, he avoided didactic specificity

and encouraged multivalent interpretations from audiences. He also developed some

signature patterns for using visual imagery in his plays. Esslin said:

In fact, an acceleration similar to the slow and regular beginning of a machine marks the opening of many Ionesco’s plays: the gradual growth of the corpse in Amedee, the slow arrival of the first guests in The Chairs, the first rhinoceros in Berenger’s village, and the first piece of furniture for The New Tenant. Then the accumulation gathers speed until it reaches a mad precipitation. 28

Esslin is describing more than an increase in pace or momentum; Ionesco favors a proliferation of objects or images that literally dominate the stage. The snowball effect produced by multiplying images encourages audiences to consider multiple meanings or interpretations for each of the repeating metaphors, rather than trying to identify one particular meaning for a single image. For example, the first rhinoceros is a nuisance, the second is a punchline, the third is a threat, the small herd is a force, and when the final scene features a stage filled with rhinoceroses, they form an entire corrupt society. The proliferation and repetition of imagery is part of Ionesco’s search for meaning because there may be multiple explanations or solutions to any of the problems posed by a play.

These desired elements of spectacle have sometimes created conflict between Ionesco

and production teams. He explains, “I have often been at odds with my directors: either

they are not daring enough and reduce the impact of my plays by not exhausting their full

27 Nelvin Vos, Eugene Ionesco and Edward Albee: A Critical Essay (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1968), 36.

28Ibid., 33. 10

potentialities as the stage demands: or else they adorn the text, overloading it with cheap embellishment and decoration, unnecessary and therefore worthless.” 29 This remark captured in Notes and Counter Notes implies friction with theatre companies ignoring bold imagery, like Jean’s physicalized onstage rhinoceros transformation. It also suggests that some companies have at times gotten carried away with set dressing and detracted from Ionesco’s desired imagery and metaphors through visual clutter. It is clear that

Ionesco regards the visual dimension of theatre as a tool greater than or equal to language, when it comes to conveying meaning.

Theatre of the Absurd

In 1961, Martin Esslin published The Theatre of the Absurd, thereby coining its title phrase. He used it to describe the works of select midcentury dramatists that he believed were pioneering new theatrical conventions, including Ionesco, Samuel Beckett,

Jean Genet, Harold Pinter, Arthur Adamov, and others. There was no evidence to suggest that the playwrights planned to work in similar modes, and their career histories reveal

unique, personalized paths to the playwriting profession. Yet, they were all prone to

experimentation with plot, characterization, and dialogue. They also explored common

themes of isolation, purpose, and pain that, to Esslin, seemed to echo Albert Camus’

description of the Absurd as a “sense of metaphysical anguish at the absurdity of the

human condition.” 30 Although Esslin coined the term “Theatre of the Absurd,” he did not

perceive the existential themes of the plays as being hopeless or nihilistic. He explained

that it “does not reflect despair or a return to dark irrational forces but expresses modern

29 Ionesco, Notes and Counter Notes, 208.

30 Esslin, 5. 11

man’s endeavor to come to terms with the world in which he lives. It attempts to make

him face up to the human condition as it really is, to free him from illusions that are

bound to cause constant maladjustment and disappointment.” 31 The term quickly caught

on with scholars and critics, as they tried to communicate what theatregoers could expect

from these playwrights, whose works began on the fringe of culture before moving

solidly into the cultural mainstream.

The Theatre of the Absurd was a retroactive categorization of artists working in

similar modes, not an intentional or organized artistic movement. Though Esslin is quick

to make this distinction, the original playwrights described as Absurdist are sometimes

mistakenly held to unfair expectations or standards, as if Absurdism was an established

movement for which they wrote. Though categorically connected in retrospect, the

Absurdists were not organized around shared goals; there were no codified Absurdist standards or shared manifestoes. Still, Ionesco was often questioned about his role as a

leading Absurdist playwright. In an interview with him, Claude Bonnefoy said, “If Sartre

and Camus thought out these themes, you expressed them in a far more vital

contemporary fashion." Ionesco replied:

I have the feeling that these writers – who are serious and important – were talking about absurdity and death, but that they never really lived these themes, that they did not feel them within themselves in an almost irrational, visceral way, that all this was not deeply inscribed in their language. With them it was still rhetoric, eloquence. With Adamov and Beckett it really is a very naked reality that is conveyed through the apparent dislocation of language.32

31 Esslin, 362.

32 Claude Bonnefoy, Conversations with Eugène Ionesco, trans. Jan Dawson (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1971), 122–123. 12

Ionesco’s reply points to one of the hallmarks of Absurdist playwrights, as mentioned previously; the desire to communicate a personal experience to an audience in an experiential way. This contrasts with the elite, didactic approach to similar philosophical themes as employed by Camus and Sartre. They, too, saw the world through a lens of absurdity, but while they sought to enlighten an audience’s intellect, the Absurdists targeted the audience’s instincts. Ionesco, Beckett, and Adamov each faced challenges relating to wartime, abandonment, and personal conflict; their experiences were too viscerally painful to explain in purely intellectual terms. A reasoned, intellectual approach to explaining life’s absurdities would go against a foundational Absurdist idea; there is no good reason for anything in the universe, and yet the universe exists. Esslin also noted thematic similarities between the Absurdists and Existentialist playwrights like

Sartre, Camus, Anouilh, and Giradoux. However, he argued that the Existentialists wrote from theory, while the Absurdists wrote from experience. Esslin also chose to separate the Absurdists from playwrights of the ‘poetic avant-garde,’ such as Michel de

Ghelderode, Jacques Audiberti, Henri Pichette, and others. Although these playwrights also explored absurd themes and ignored conventions of plot and character, they were

“more lyrical” and embraced poetic language, whereas the Absurdists favored the grotesque and preferred imagery to lyricism. 33

It did not take long for Esslin’s book to receive critical acclaim, which set up new expectations for Ionesco and his contemporaries, for better or for worse. The following exchange was part of an interview conducted by Judith Jasmin for a Radio Canada broadcast in 1961, the same year Esslin’s book was published:

33 Esslin, 5-7. 13

Jasmin: Your theatre is called Theatre of the Absurd. What does ‘absurd’ mean to you?

Ionesco: That’s a very difficult question. If I keep going, I’ll get angry with God. I

think it’s absurd that he…

Jasmin: That he exists? (politely laughs)

Ionesco: Not absurd. Life isn’t absurd. History isn’t absurd. It’s very logical. It can be explained. You can figure out why things occur. It isn’t something within our existence that’s absurd. It’s our existence itself I find unimaginable, unthinkable. 34

This exchange illuminates a few misconceptions about Absurdist thought. First, note how

Ionesco divides logic and explanation from the Absurdist experience. The fact that

someone can logically or historically explain something does not erase the fact that they

may still find it challenging to comprehend or justify experientially. Explaining the

aerodynamics of aviation does not detract from the experiential wonder of flight, nor do

retrospective explanations from a former spouse lessen the experiential pain of divorce.

Second, note how Ionesco does not laugh along with Jasmin at her small joke

about God’s existence. He does not disparage her laughter either, but it is important to

clarify that acknowledging the Absurd nature of life does not require a point of view that

denies the existence of God. To do so would be to respond as those Ionesco was mocking

in The Bald Soprano. “The play is an attack against…the ‘universal petty-

bourgeoisie…the personification of accepted ideas and slogans, the ubiquitous

conformist.”35 As the interviewer demonstrates, it is easy for people to assume that

Absurdists would follow the popular “accepted idea” that God does not exist; they might

34 Ionesco, interview by Jasmin.

35 Ionesco, “The Tragedy of Language,” 10-13. 14

even use the oft misquoted Nietzschean slogan, “God is dead.” This would be a

superficial view of Absurdist views. Ionesco further explains the limitations of the word:

To say the world is absurd is equally ridiculous; we’re not more intelligent than the Deity. It is absurd to say that the world is absurd. What criteria have we for absurdity? If I say that history is absurd, I imply that I know something which is not; therefore the absurd no longer exists…Shall I accept existence as it is? If I say what it is I am still passing judgment, and I cannot fail to be mistaken since my intelligence is limited…36

This passage from Fragments of a Journal supports the existence of a Deity and steers the conversation about Ionesco’s view of the Absurd as one that recognizes one’s limited

personal knowledge. Ionesco does not attempt to explain or justify chaos. Instead, he

humbly acknowledges the chaos while admitting he cannot understand it. This

commitment to authenticity sets the Absurdists apart while emphasizing their

commitment to sharing personal experiences; Ionesco knows there are pains in life he has

experienced but cannot explain.

Arguing that a surface reading of Absurdism is insufficient, Esslin explains that

Theatre of the Absurd is particularly entwined with metaphysical pursuit. He says,

In expressing the tragic sense of loss at the disappearance of ultimate certainties the Theatre of the Absurd, by a strange paradox, is also a symptom of what probably comes nearest to being a genuine religious quest in our age: an effort, however timid and tentative, to sing, to laugh, to weep – and to growl – if not in praise of God…at least in search of a dimension of the Ineffable; an effort to make man aware of the ultimate realities of his condition, to instill in him again the lost sense of cosmic wonder and primeval anguish, to shock him out of an existence that has become trite, mechanical, complacent, and deprived of the dignity that comes from awareness. 37

This idea of dignity through awareness will prove to be critical to understanding the

protagonist of Rhinoceros. The play follows Berenger as he develops the willpower to

36 Ionesco, Fragments of a Journal, 83.

37 Esslin, 338. 15 stand behind his understanding of the truth; it paints him as an unexpected hero whose rise is built on unwavering honesty. Berenger, like Ionesco, chooses to be honest with himself. Nelvin Vos explains, “What the Theatre of the Absurd has dramatized is that man must learn to live without illusions. The dramatic action systematically destroys all fantasies…”38 Read this way, Theatre of the Absurd deconstructs misconceptions to help people face the truth. It would be a mistake to assume that Absurdism meant complete meaninglessness; it is not anti-truth. While it does not heavily promote either a relativistic or an absolutist point of view, the Theatre of the Absurd prompts audiences to confront knowable truths about their society and respond to them honestly.

Ionesco’s Genres

Since Theatre of the Absurd is not, itself, a particular genre for which playwrights intentionally wrote, but rather a retrospective category to describe their work, it begs the question of what, if any, genre(s) did the Absurdists aspire to write. From the start,

Ionesco’s plays were hard to categorize; they did not fit neatly into traditional forms.

Deborah B. Gaensbauer suggests, “The rhinoceros metaphor is a challenging one to stage. It must be made to shift from comic to tragic intent without allowing the moral fable to bury either the fantastic elements or Berenger’s clownlike appeal.” 39 This caution for the director flows from the fact that Ionesco’s plays borrow elements from different genres and take on a theatrical life of their own. Ionesco said, "We are comic.

That’s the only way we should look at ourselves. Only humor, bland or black or cruel,

38 Vos, 43.

39 Gaensbauer, 105. 16 4 0 only humor can give us back serenity." In an interview with Canadian Radio personality Judith Jasmin, Ionesco explained the intertwined nature of comedy and tragedy in his work and philosophy:

Jasmin: You believe strongly in comedy.

Ionesco: Yes, but it’s hard for me to define comedy.

Jasmin: Have you dissected it?

Ionesco: Defining comedy is a challenge. So far, no one has come up with a good definition.

Jasmin: Then let's stick to the facts.

Ionesco: For me, the world is a comedy because it's ridiculous. It's comical because it's tragic. For me, comedy is one side of tragedy.

Jasmin: The flip side of tragedy?

Ionesco: The flip side but also tragedy itself. Comedy is more tragic than tragedy. Tragedy has rules: and battling fate, man destroyed by fate and by laws. Comedy has no laws. It’s ridiculous because there’s no fate. Having fate condemn and destroy you is one way to give life meaning. But when there’s not even fate…4 1

To Ionesco, the unpredictable nature of comedy most closely resembles the erratic nature

of life. The assertion that his works are more comic than tragic seems less about

following a comic formula and more about the lack of a sufficient form of tragedy.

Tragedy is built on a sense of idealism that is incongruent with Ionesco’s view of the

world; it is built on rules of order that the audience can clearly define. The audience

understands and expects the tragic hero to fall because the hero’s hubris breaks a code of

conduct, naturally incurring punishment. However, Ionesco does not ascribe to a view of

the world that is that predictable or consequential. Since man regularly incurs troubles

unexpectedly, and often from no fault of his own, the subjective, randomized nature of

40 Ionesco, Fragments of a Journal, 100.

41 Ionesco, interview by Jasmin. 17 undeserved consequences must follow a more comic sensibility. Ionesco has lived through too much absurdity to believe the world follows such carefully delineated rules.

He has found comfort for coping with life’s challenges by allowing himself to laugh at the absurdity of man’s choices and existence.

Ionesco’s plays celebrate the unpredictability of the life by highlighting its absurd features, rather than forcing a more mundane, rule-driven narrative. He explains:

I have always thought that the truth of fiction is more profound, more charged with meaning than everyday reality. Realism, whether it be socialist or not, falls short of reality. It shrinks it, attenuates it, falsifies it; it does not take into account our basic truths and our fundamental obsessions: love, death, astonishment. It presents man in a reduced and estranged perspective. Truth is in our dreams in the imagination…42

Since mankind cannot expect life to play out as envisaged, Ionesco sets out to help man

experience and work through the unexpected. For him to accomplish this goal, realism as

a dramatic approach does not suffice. Ionesco seeks to engage audiences in a more active

and personal pursuit of making meaning.

One way to inspire more active engagement is to employ elements of mystery.

Ionesco said, “All the plays that have ever been written, from Ancient Greece to the

present day, have never really been anything but thrillers. Drama’s always been realistic

and there’s always been a detective about. Every play’s an investigation brought to a

successful conclusion. There’s a riddle, and it’s solved in the final scene.”43 Ionesco’s

plays function as thrillers in a most imaginative sense. There are no overriding popular

tropes of mystery, but there are fresh ideas and conflicts presented through metaphors that remain unexplained until audience members actively engage with their imagery over

42 Coe, 27.

43 Ibid., 28.

18 the course of the play. For example, in Rhinoceros, Ionesco prompts the audience to

guess which characters will be overtaken by rhinoceritis and why. He does not spell out

the rules and reasoning that guide the world of the play, and in doing so, he frees the

audience to enjoy deciphering the clues for themselves.

Advocating for the Individual

The previous sections discussed Ionesco’s individualistic approach to his work.

From “blundering into playwriting quite by accident” 44 and pioneering new conventions,

to experimenting with genre and inviting audiences to share in personal experiences, his

career is marked not only by a path of individuality, but by a strong concern for

individualism and upholding human dignity. He invites audiences to contemplate what

makes them uniquely human. As a self-professed outsider, his understanding of individuality springs from feelings of otherness, which in turn prompts people to consider viewpoints outside the hegemony. However, the value of the individual did not only guide his creative process or point of view; it is also embedded in his content as a recurrent theme. He explains, “Every life is unique. Every life is a whole universe. But no life means anything unless it reflects the universal life, unless it is at the same time itself and something else, it means nothing if it is separate, it means nothing, too, if it is lived gregariously, if it is lost in the nothingness of impersonality.” 45 This conveys two

touchstone ideas for Ionesco. First, he believes that human beings have an innate dignity

and uniqueness, simply by being human, and this dignity must be acknowledged as

44 Rollyson, 503.

45 Ionesco, Fragments of a Journal, 30. 19 universally applicable to all members of the human race. To deny the universal dignity of human life is to lose all meaning.

Second, meaning cannot be separated from personality; it must be personally experienced. It is as if the lifeblood of an idea is revealed only when individuals literally work it out in their own lives. This is not a utilitarian viewpoint, in which only useful ideas last. Instead, it a personalist viewpoint, tracing the value of thought inspiring life.

Ionesco expounds on this idea when asked to explain the more ideological nature of his middle plays, as compared to The Bald Soprano. He said:

Yes, they’re plays which give the impression of being more ideological than the others, but it’s not the ideology that’s important. If you take Pirandello’s plays, you see that the psychological theories are very out of date but it’s not the ideas that count, it’s the passions which the ideas clothe. You can create a very valuable work with a bad ideology, even with banal philosophical ideas. The most important example is Shakespeare himself. His philosophy had been familiar since the time of King Solomon, who said that all is vanity, but what matters is the way the ideas are lived and become flesh and blood.”46

Ionesco celebrates the creative potential of ideas that come from within. For an idea to be

“flesh and blood,” it must be internalized and life-giving for the individual. This is in

contrast to an idea that is placed upon the individual from the outside. Ideologies rooted

in propaganda are placed upon individuals from outside forces, seeking their submissive

conformity. Propagandized ideas do not arise naturally from within the individual without

requiring the additional effort of justification; this idea was fleshed out literally in

Rhinoceros, when characters who succumb to propagandized ideologies find themselves

transformed into beasts. The “rhinocerotic” ideologies originate from outside sources

46 Ronald Hayman, and Eugene Ionesco, " Eugene Ionesco: Interviewed by Ronald Hayman." The Transatlantic Review, no. 41 (Winter-Spring 1972): 6, accessed February 9, 2020, www.jstor.org/stable/41513159. 20 first, but once an individual chooses to follow them, the person unnaturally turns into an animal; the ideologies from propaganda are a lifeblood of poison.

Furthermore, Ionesco posits that popularized totalitarian ideas are rooted in individualism run amuck. He said,

Yesterday’s politicians, today’s ideologists, all those who deny individualism are fierce and violent individualists, impelled by a pathological will to power and an excessive urge to assert themselves, to realize themselves, to absorb or dominate others so that only their own hypertrophied self may survive: personalities, races, works, signatures, everything must be submerged in the collective impersonalism, in the collective unconscious, except that self which denounces the presence of the others whom he seeks to drive out from his own being. 47

Note how Ionesco locates the root of violence and dominance in a collectivist mindset.

The terms “collective impersonalism” and “collective unconscious” speak to the power and danger of people who bond over denying the individuality of others. Simultaneously using collectivism to reinforce one’s own sense of individuality while demeaning another’s is a perversion of the personality; it uses power dynamics for personal gain.

Such practices create a scenario like unto a survival of the fittest. It does not seek to understand or dignify the individual experiences of others; hence the demeaning

“nothingness of impersonality” described earlier. In Fragments of a Journal, Ionesco questions,

This is the question: are we unique beings, that’s to say immortal…or are we merely the receptacle for anonymous forces which combine and join within us and then are severed and dispersed? Materialists adopt the second hypothesis; the tiresome thing is that even metaphysical and religious creeds also incline towards it. Only Judaism and Christianity have the audacity to be personalist.48

47 Ionesco, Fragments of a Journal, 149.

48 Ibid., 70-1.

21

Here, Ionesco ties the concept of the immortality of the soul to the words “unique” and

“personalist.” He is not promoting a particular religious or philosophical viewpoint, but

his comments reveal a dualist view of mankind, rather than a materialist view, which

aligns well with his rejection of Marxist philosophy. 49

Ionesco further supports this line of inquiry in an interview with Ronald Hayman, in which he describes the human condition of death as “unacceptable,” “a condition

which I reject,” and “a law I won’t accept.” 50 A reader could imagine a subtext of

lightness as they banter about rejecting death, and yet Hayman changes the subject

quickly, presumably because Ionesco’s full meaning is unclear. Ionesco seems to be

arguing, although politely and somewhat humorously, for acknowledging the immortality

of the soul. This concept is not exclusive to religious discussion, but rather a wider

consideration of debates of metaphysical philosophy. Hayman’s interview explored

further metaphysical topics:

Hayman: Do you prefer Jung to Freud?

Ionesco: Yes.

Hayman: Because he leaves the door open for religion?

Ionesco: Yes, he doesn't exclude it. He says that it's an imperative. He makes no religious pronouncements himself, but psychologically one needs God and no doubt that corresponds to a certain reality.

Hayman: But that doesn’t prove that God exists.

Ionesco: We don’t know. That’s where the betting begins…51

49 Eugene Ionesco, “Culture and Politics,” trans. Silvie Drake in The Dream and the Play: Ionesco’s Theatrical Quest, ed. Moshe Lazar (Malibu: Undena Publications, 1982), 166.

50 Hayman and Ionesco, 10-12.

51 Ibid., 8. 22

Living through the painful and inexplicable absurdities of Nazism and Fascism no doubt

prompted many people to deny the existence of God. On the other hand, if unimaginable

human atrocities can take place, thinkers like Ionesco can conceive that something as

unfathomable and “absurd” as the existence of God could also be true. This follows

Absurdism as being primarily concerned with the honest embrace of personal experience,

not reasoned explanations for all phenomena. Similarly, Coe, Hayman, and Gaensbauer

all note Ionesco’s connection with philosopher Emmanuel Mounier, whose concept of

personalism denounced materialism while combining anti-capitalist views with personal

spiritual development. Ionesco was involved with the group that published Mounier’s

review L’Esprit. 52 Ionesco said, “Around 1928 when I knew him, there was reason to be

afraid of totalitarianism and Mounier’s attitude was interesting. To be humane, the

individual has to give himself to others. In face of the enemies of humanity, human

society preserves its individuality but justifies it socially….”53 This commitment to

respecting the dignity of the individual, including their spirituality, through a socially focused life was a revolutionary concept to Ionesco and would thematically inform his work in later years. In Letters from Paris, he determines that mankind’s pressing problem is “to choose between spirituality and liberty on the one hand and barbarianism and slavery on the other.”54 In particular, these ideals were primed for Ionesco to explore and

work out in the process writing of Rhinoceros.

52 Gaensbauer, 10.

53 Hayman and Ionesco, 7.

54Eugene Ionesco, “Lettres de France,” Viata Romaneasca (January 1939): 230, quoted in Gelu Ionescu, Les Debuts litteraires roumains d’Eugene Ionesco, anatomie d’un echec, trans. Mirella Nedelco- Patureau (Heidelberg: Carl Winter Universitatsverlag, 1989): quoted in Deborah B. Gaensbauer, Eugene Ionesco Revisited (New York: Twayne Publishers, 1996), 10. 23 Rhinoceros Roots and Inspiration

Living in France and Romania during the time of both World Wars, Ionesco saw firsthand how ideologies could bring about this “barbarianism and slavery.” He said,

Aggression against the individual self, the denial of the personality, seems to me to be, consciously or not, the belated fruit of the two main collectivist trends of our century: Nazism and Left-wing totalitarianism (as realized in history)…If the individual self is an illusion, who’s to prevent me from repudiating it, from destroying and despising it, from killing or imprisoning my fellow men? 55

This chilling observation calls out two powerful and popular historical factions that used

propaganda and social pressure to strip outsiders of their identities. As mentioned

previously, Ionesco saw his own father enthusiastically support multiple oppressive

regimes in search of power. Doubtlessly influenced by the shifting allegiances of his

father and others, the playwright began exploring the metaphor of a rhinoceros in one of

his wartime journals, which was first published in 1957. 56 Ionesco used the rhino to

symbolize a brutish destructive herd. He wrote a short story, simply titled “Rhinoceros,”

in his journal that imagined a society taken over by rhinoceroses with their own rules. It

was a way of processing the Nazification of Romania that he had witnessed. 57 He

explained,

“I have been very much struck by what one might call the current of opinion, by its rapid evolution, its power of contagion, which is that of a real epidemic. People allow themselves suddenly to be invaded by a new religion, a doctrine, a fanaticism…At such moments we witness a veritable mental mutation. I don’t know if you have noticed it, but when people no longer share your opinions, when you can no longer make yourself understood by them, one has the impression of being confronted with monsters – rhinos, for example. They have that mixture of candour and ferocity. They would kill you with the best of consciences. And

55 Ionesco, Fragments of a Journal, 148-149.

56 Nancy Lane, Understanding Eugene Ionesco (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1994), 110.

57 Gaensbauer, 100. 24

history has shown us during the last quarter of a century that people thus transformed not only resemble rhinos, but really become rhinoceroses.”58

Armed with this metaphor from his short story, Ionesco would later develop his third full-

length play in 1959, also titled Rhinoceros. The play was completed shortly after the success of The Killer and was the second to feature a lead everyman-type character

named Berenger as its protagonist. In Rhinoceros, Berenger witnesses his entire community turn into rhinoceroses one by one, until he is the only human left. Berenger is often assumed to be a stand-in for Ionesco himself, and he would feature in a total of four of the playwright’s major works.59 Berenger’s characterization will be discussed in the

next chapter, but it is worth noting here that Ionesco’s use of the Berenger character in a plot inspired by both historical and personal events is one of the strongest examples of

Ionesco using playwriting as a processing tool to actively think through personal

problems. Rhinoceros would go on to receive global success through many productions,

and because he spoke so openly about the inspirations behind his script, the play remains

one of the most studied in his oeuvre. However, knowledge of background information

on the playwright’s inspiration does not necessarily equal artistic success.

Rhinoceros on the World Stage

The first full performance of Rhinoceros was actually a radio broadcast of its

English translation by Derek Prouse60 in the BBC’s Third Programme on August 20,

58 Eugene Ionesco, interview by Claude Sarraute, Le Monde (January17, 1960): quoted in Martin Esslin, The Theatre of the Absurd (London: Bloomsbury, 2014), 144.

59 Berenger is the protagonist of The Killer (1958), Rhinoceros (1959), Exit the King (1962), and A Stroll in the Air (1962).

60 This original English translation by Prouse was selected for the Baylor University Theatre production. It was compared to the 2007 Martin Crimp translation and preferred because the fluidity of its dialogue suited the vision for the production. 25

1959. Its stage debut followed on November 6th in Dusseldorf, Germany. On January 25,

1960, it opened at the Odeon in Paris, with Jean-Louis Barrault both starring and

directing. Orson Welles directed Laurence Olivier in the London production, which

opened at the Royal Court on April 28th, 1960. 61 Opening on January1, 1961, it became

Ionesco’s first play to receive a Broadway production. 62 In a little more than a year,

Rhinoceros was part of a global cultural conversation and it would remain one of

Ionesco’s most produced plays in subsequent years. The productions that premiered

throughout the 1960-1961 seasons built off the play’s worldwide popularity. Each was a

unique production with its own production staff and company. While the title Rhinoceros

proved to be a draw in each of the countries that debuted the show, the actual productions differed significantly. Different directors brought different visions to each production to varying degrees of success, and those that supported the themes of individuality received better feedback than those that made light of it.

Ionesco remarked, “I believe Jean-Louis Barrault has caught the meaning of the play and put it over perfectly. The Germans turned it into tragedy, Jean-Louis Barrault into terrible farce and fantastic fable. Both interpretations are valid, exemplary productions of this play.” 63 It is noteworthy that Ionesco was open to multiple

interpretations of his plays. While he wrote specific pictorial stage directions with the

expectation that directors incorporate them, as mentioned previously, he was not so

stringent or particular to deny a director the interpretive freedom of his or her art form,

61 Esslin, 143.

62 Gaensbauer, 100.

63 Ionesco, Notes and Counter Notes, 207. 26

given that the director’s vision did not undermine the play. Both the German and the

French premieres played the rhinoceros transformations as horrifying and realistic.

Though the French production would allow more of the comic voice to be heard, it was

never at the expense of the true threat and danger the characters were experiencing. In

fact, the French version included an element that has been subsequently and historically left out of English productions, possibly due to an oversight or an editorial choice in

Prouse’s translation; in the French script, Berenger calls for his pistols before saying the final line of the play. 64 Brandishing pistols to take on the rhino herd may seem an even

more pointless and absurd ending than the English version, but incorporating the pistols

punctuates the weightiness of Berenger’s conviction in the end. It was not played for

laughs, and audiences were meant to take it seriously.

Ionesco also appreciated the “sad and moving drama” of the Italian production

and commended the Poles for producing a “weighty play.” 65 Any production that

honored the plight of Berenger, Ionesco’s double, was applauded by the playwright, regardless of differences in directorial concepts and execution. Richard Coe attributes

Nicolas Bataille, the director of the original production of The Bald Soprano, as being

“the first to discover the real secret that seems to underlie the successful productions of

any Ionesco play. Such productions achieve their originality through variations in tone

and nuances of the seriousness – never by scrapping it altogether.” 66 Coe, then suggests

that nearly every production that does not play the problems as serious is doomed to fail

64 Moshe Lazar, “The Psychodramatic Stage: Ionesco and His Doubles,” in The Dream and the Play: Ionesco’s Theatrical Quest, ed. Moshe Lazar (Malibu: Undena Publications, 1982), 151-2.

65 Ionesco, Notes and Counter Notes, 208-209.

66 Coe, 148. 27 or disappoint. He called the production of Rhinoceros at the Royal Court Theatre, as directed by Orson Welles, “disastrous,” and he was just one of many to share this criticism.

London critic Alan Pryce-Jones said, “Rhinoceros proved a sad disappointment

[…]. The fault is not Ionesco’s and it is certainly not Olivier’s. I suspect Orson Welles, since the play deviates a long way from Ionesco’s original concept…Instead of playing it straight, the actors have been encouraged to play for easy laughs…”67 Beyond criticizing the broadly comic approach, Pryce-Jones also questioned the decision of Welles to set the play’s opening scene inside a pub. This undercut the sense of threat to the community by losing the village street location and likely primed the audience to anticipate more of a

British farce than was intended. The primary complaint, though, for both Ionesco and critics was the overplayed comedy. Playing for laughs does not allow the audience to connect to Berenger’s inner world. They cannot get to know his motivations if he is treated as an object for ridicule, rather than a subject for study. Audiences certainly cannot truly experience Berenger’s fears if his friend Jean is also a broadly comic character. If Jean is played for laughs, he is neutered of his threat when he transforms into a rhinoceros in Act Two. The London production may have solidified Ionesco’s selling power abroad, but it did not represent the compassionate and relatable view of the individual that he intended.

Shortly after the successful sales and missed thematic opportunities in London,

Rhinoceros opened in New York under the direction of Joseph Anthony, with Eli

Wallach playing Berenger and Zero Mostel playing John. Although it was his Broadway

67 Alan Pryce-Jones, “Through the Looking-Glass,” The Observer, May 1, 1960, 23. 28

debut as a playwright, Ionesco was even more critical of the American production

because of the way the director handled the characters and the comedy. He explained,

“I have read the American critics on the play and noticed that everyone agreed the play was funny. Well, it isn’t. Although it is a farce, it is above all a tragedy. The production reveals not only an absence of style (as in everything put on in the boulevard theatres of Paris or on Broadway; and in Moscow too, moreover, where the advanced theatre is the old theatre of 1900) but above all intellectual dishonesty.” 68

The Broadway production made Jean, anglicized and renamed as John, into a caricature,

which played to Mostel’s comic charisma. However, Ionesco found his rhinoceros to be

“feeble” and offering no real threat to either Berenger or the audience’s fears. Berenger,

on the other hand, was played as a know-it-all hero with wry delivery. He was not the

everyman character audiences in Europe had used as a personal entryway into the story.

Instead, the entire show was played for laughs, which jeopardized the intended experience; for Ionesco, it was an example of an unnecessary and unintended type of absurdity.69

Forcing the comedy of the play compromises the respect for the individual that

Ionesco seeks to build. If Berenger is only laughable, he becomes an outsider ripe for

ridicule; he risks becoming an ‘other’ for the audience, instead of their window into the

world of the play. If Berenger is designed as the everyman character, the audience should

be inspired to laugh along with him, when appropriate, as he shares relatable fears and

foibles. If, instead, they are prompted to only laugh at him, they are inadvertently aligned

with his enemies, the rhinoceroses. The treatment of the comedy prompts a completely

different dynamic between the audience and the protagonist, which also affects the way

68 Ionesco, Notes and Counter Notes, 208.

69 Ibid., 209. 29

the audience can interact with the thematic material. The play works best when actors

emphasize the characters’ individuality, so they are respected as unique in their points of

view. If characters are played as broad comedic stereotypes, the audience relaxes into a

collectively judgmental type of laughter that is unintended. The crowd groans or laughs together because they see predictable stereotypes they can easily evaluate based on preconceived prejudices, but this does not invite active, thematic exploration on their

part. Such broad and predictable approaches to characterization also deflate potential

power from the transformation scenes. If Jean, Dudard, and Daisy are only stereotypes

played for laughs that lack distinct individuality, the audience misses out on a sense of

loss when each of them ultimately turn into rhinoceroses. Berenger, then, becomes a pitiable Charlie Brown who is lost without his cartoon friends, rather than a reluctant fighter broken by solitude and betrayal who is somehow emboldened by upholding the truth.

It is worth noting that the London and New York premiere productions were both directed by Americans. Orson Welles and Joseph Anthony both trended toward silliness and broad comedy that ultimately diluted the play’s potency, removing opportunities for reflection. It is reasonable to assume that the American directors had a more difficult time relating to the play, compared to the various European directors. Fascists and Nazis were

seen as overseas enemies to the Americans. They were not deluded family members,

former friends, or present threats, as they were to the Europeans. As creative and

intelligent as the Americans were, they lacked personal connection to the play, having

never lived in an occupied area during wartime nor experienced totalitarian violence on

their home soil. As Ionesco sought to connect with audiences through fantastic imagery

30 while unpacking his own emotional responses, it is possible the Americans had too much distance from the institutionalized suffering that made Rhinoceros so relatable to

European directors and audiences alike.

Despite the criticisms of the original English language productions, Rhinoceros has proven to be an enduring international title and one of the most-produced plays in

Ionesco’s oeuvre. Part of its resiliency lies in Ionesco’s choice of deliberately obscured metaphors. This will be discussed further in the following chapter, but it is important to note that failing to label the rhinoceroses as specifically representing Nazis or Fascists has allowed the play a sense of malleability that can be readily adapted to a new scenario or setting. Ionesco claimed, “The ‘case study’ of rhinoceritis – whether understood as a depiction of Nazism, the excesses of Stalinism, the evolution of communism, or (by

American audiences) the rage of McCarthyism, was a powerful theatrical event.” 70 The interchangeability of the rhinoceroses as metaphors for any group in power ensures an ongoing opportunity for relevance and effectiveness. For example, in November 1968,

“Le Figaro Litteraire published a caricature of a solitary rhinoceros with Ionesco’s features charging…at the whole Soviet army; and it is a fact of history that it was the discovery of a text of Rhinoceros in a Russian literary review which helped to give the

Soviet writer Anatoli Kuznetzov the courage to defect to the West.”71 This story demonstrates the power of personalized art to empower other individuals who take the time to thoughtfully experience it and respond.

70 Gaensbauer, 101.

71 Coe, 23-24. 31

Conclusion

Rhinoceros carries tenets of Ionesco’s individual literary style and, as situated in

the middle of his body of work, it draws on past conventions while hinting at developments to come. It is a rich text made richer by biographical information of the

playwright, including his insistence that playwriting is his chosen mode for thought and

working through personal struggles. Reflecting on the play’s success, Ionesco said:

Rhinoceros has to date had more than a thousand performances in Germany, hundreds in the Americas and in France. Many others in England, Italy, Poland, Japan, Scandinavia, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Holland, etc.…I am amazed at the success of this play. Do people understand it properly? Do they see in it that monstrous phenomenon of ‘massification’? And while they are all ‘massifiable,’ are they also, essentially and in their heart of hearts, all individualists, unique human beings? 72

Ionesco posed this question a mere five years after the BBC broadcast the first full radio

performance of Rhinoceros, and the productions only multiplied from there. For a

playwright who claims to present content in images that audiences must then deduce, he

has historically spoken more about the themes of Rhinoceros than most of his other plays.

Rhinoceros also engages with more explicitly political and sociological imagery than his

other works. With Rhinoceros, Ionesco seemed to be tipping his hand as a compassionate

playwright deeply concerned with empowering and dignifying the individual in all of us.

72 Ionesco, Notes and Counter Notes, 211.

32

CHAPTER TWO

Analyzing the Play

Introduction

The plot of Rhinoceros is relatively straightforward; a rhinoceros charges through a neighborhood street wreaking havoc. Soon, an epidemic of “rhinoceritis” spreads throughout the society, turning humans into rhinos one by one. The plot leaves the audience to speculate which characters will transform to join the rhino herd and which will maintain their human individuality. By design, the script itself avoids outlining a real-world parallel to the central metaphor of the rhinoceroses. However, interviewers pressed Ionesco for explanations following the play’s international success, and he went

on record to describe the inspirations behind the plot in greater detail. As mentioned previously, the play drew on Ionesco’s experiences watching the rise of Nazism and

fascism firsthand. Thus, Rhinoceros has both the distinction and baggage of having a

central metaphor that the playwright widely discussed publicly with critics while he was

alive. Understanding Ionesco’s inspiration helped clarify the script’s use of plot, theme,

and character while preparing the Baylor production. Furthermore, it was helpful for the

Baylor team to consider the criticism surrounding the international debut productions in

light of Ionesco’s thematic insight into the play in order to anticipate common challenges

and attempt to avoid repeating certain critical mistakes related to staging its central

rhinoceros metaphor. This chapter will begin with a further analysis of this metaphor

33 before analyzing the play’s structure, given circumstances, characters, and themes from

scene to scene.

Ionesco’s Explanation

Ionesco said, “Rhinoceros was a success despite bad reviews. Critics were

offended because they thought the rhinos might be them. The so-called intellectuals did

too.”1 For whatever reason, Ionesco was more vocal in explaining the play and coming to

its defense. He shared the following background information in an interview with Ronald

Hayman:

My youth was spent partly in France, partly in Romania, where I saw the hatching of the Nazi movement. At that time everybody was a Nazi, just as today everybody is an extreme Leftist. If someone said he was a Democrat then, he would have been lynched, and the best spirits of the time, the intellectuals, were Fascists, just as the intellectuals of today are Leftists. The banners are different, but the fanaticism is the same.2

Ionesco wished to acknowledge how his personal experiences informed his creation of the rhinoceros metaphor without limiting its interpretation to one historic time and occurrence. Thus, he clarifies that fanaticism is the target, rather than any particular political power or philosophy.

Similarly, in a preface to the published script, he wrote, “Rhinoceros is certainly

an anti-Nazi play, yet it is also and mainly an attack on collective hysteria and the

epidemics that lurk beneath the surface of reason and ideas but are none the less serious

1 Eugene Ionesco, interview by Judith Jasmin, aired 1961, on Radio-Canada., DVD (Freemantle, Western Australia: Contemporary Arts Media).

2 Ronald Hayman, and Eugene Ionesco, " Eugene Ionesco: Interviewed by Ronald Hayman." The Transatlantic Review, no. 41 (Winter-Spring 1972): 11, accessed February 9, 2020, www.jstor.org/stable/41513159.

34 collective diseases passed off as ideologies…”3 Here. Ionesco admits the parallels to

Nazism upfront to help the reader move past historical distractions and see a more

universally applicable message about pack mentality. In an interview with Judith

Jameson, he narrowed the focus even further:

Ionesco: The rhinos are more demi-intellectuals than the man in the street. I feel intellectuals have a mass mentality.

Jasmin: That's a novel idea because people always say the opposite. People have tried to explain Rhinoceros by saying you wanted to…

Ionesco: It’s not the masses.

Jasmin: Yes, but it’s a totalitarian spirit.

Ionesco: True. But the basic experience is the Nazification of a country…So this play serves as a trial for intellectuals. They’re to blame for the rise of Nazism. Not the great intellects but the professional intellectuals.

Jasmin: Those who think a bit? (Laughs.)

Ionesco: Writers, journalists, professors, and the like. It's their fault. 4

While most critics and audiences were comfortable seeing rhinoceroses as Nazis up for

ridicule and receiving a type of poetic justice on stage, they were less keen to

acknowledge rhinoceritis as a danger for intellectuals in general. Jasmin’s polite laugh

signals a slight unease with this exchange. While Ionesco is not attacking Jasmin directly,

although she too is a journalist, it is still less comfortable to acknowledge the ability of

intellectuals of any time to become rhinos. It is safer if rhinoceritis is a disease that died

out like the plague, never to resurface, rather than to consider it as an ever-present threat.

It is also more popular to align rhinoceritis with historical villains than present day

3 Eugene Ionesco, “Preface to Rhinoceros,” in Notes and Counter Notes, trans. Donald Watson (New York: Grove Press, 1964), 199. 4 Ionesco, interview by Jasmin. 35 people. Truly, while Ionesco characterizes “demi-intellectuals” as people eager for clout

and acceptance based on popular trends, many critics and audiences alike missed the

point that Ionesco expected new rhinoceroses to appear over time. The play not only

explains the past, but it warns against enabling future totalitarianism through fashionable

intellect and justification. Nancy Lane explained, “When the play premiered, critics attacked Ionesco for failing to provide a rational defense against rhinoceritis, for mocking

the human capacity to reason. Yet the true object of the play’s satire is not reason so

much as the perversion of reason wherein a system (logic) supplants reality.”5 It is

unfortunate that the play’s warnings to people were misinterpreted as offenses. As

described in the previous chapter, Ionesco greatly valued the dignity of the individual, and as such, it makes more sense for his critique to be of social systems, not mankind.

Ionesco explained, “Some critics blame me for denouncing evil without saying

what good is. I have been reproached for not letting Berenger say what ideology inspired

his resistance. They take this to be a fundamental objection: but it is so easy to rely on a

system of thought that is more or less mechanical.” 6 Chastising Ionesco for removing a

faulty ideology without replacing it with a better one is missing the point while seeking

comfort and control. These particular critics only prove his claim that demi-intellectuals

are prone to contracting rhinoceritis. When people rely on quick, manmade ideologies to

guide their decisions, they are abdicating the humility and honesty of working through

issues in a personal way. Ionesco told Hayward, “You cannot read Mein Kampf today in

5 Nancy Lane, Understanding Eugene Ionesco (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1994), 116.

6 Eugene Ionesco, Notes and Counter Notes, trans. Donald Watson (New York: Grove Press, 1964), 209-210.

36 the way that Mao's little red book is read, but the little red book is even worse than Mein

Kampf. To me it seems there's a certain diabolical aggressiveness, a fanaticism which just changes its banner.7 Ionesco rightly expects history to repeat itself because he has a full, honest appreciation for the absurdities of life and human nature. History demonstrates that totalitarianism is not exceptional and should be both expected and warned against, considering mankind’s desire for control. Ionesco concludes his preface to Rhinoceros by explaining, “But I considered it was not for me to present an emotional ideological system opposed to the other emotional ideological systems in force today. Quite simply I thought it was my job to reveal the inanity of these terrible systems, what they can lead to, how they stir people up, stupefy them and then reduce them to slavery.” 8 Thus,

Ionesco has written a perpetually timely play. Understanding the intentional depth and breadth of application concerning the rhinoceros metaphor helps direct focus away from historical particulars and toward universalities in human behavior and interaction. The universal qualities of the script are what make it attractive for study and direction.

Graphing the Script

The play follows an ever-narrowing progression, as it focuses in on the human condition in a rhinoceros world. It starts out with a normal recognizable social structure, but then it begins to narrow further and further to focus on colleagues, close associates, closer friends, then to intimate relations, and finally to the protagonist himself. I found the pictograph of a funnel to be useful for graphing the plot structure and thematic progression of the play because it helped to visualize this narrowing, focusing effect.

7 Hayman, and Ionesco, 11.

8 Ionesco, “Preface to Rhinoceros,” 199. 37 Ionesco told Claude Bonnefoy, “Rhinoceros had the construction of a short story

transposed for the stage; but it also had a dramatic progression, a proliferation; a trap

snapping shut on someone.” 9 This narrowing funnel, or “trap” helps each of the

following elements connect in a progression across the play: setting, character

relationship, tone, and point of view. Berenger is the protagonist and the only character

that appears in every scene; the audience follows the spread of the rhinoceritis epidemic

through his eyes. The antagonists are Berenger’s friends and acquaintances who turn into

rhinoceroses over the course of the play, and at least one rhino is present in each scene.

First, the individual setting of each scene follows a literal, narrowing progression concerning the physical environment. Gaensbauer notes, “Ionesco progressively shrinks the dramatic space as Berenger approaches claustrophobic isolation.” 10 Thus, Act One

takes place on a wide stretch of a neighborhood street. Act Two, Scene One is set inside a

second-floor indoor office. Act Two, Scene Two, primarily unfolds inside Jean’s studio

apartment, complete with an adjacent bathroom. Then, the action briefly extends to the outer apartment corridor. Finally, Act Three is set inside Berenger’s barricaded studio apartment. Since Berenger is featured in all four scenes, the audience follows him through his shrinking world. His sense of space complements his overall feelings, as on the street he is relaxed and carefree enough to not show much concern about the rhino’s race through town. In the office, Berenger expresses more nervous energy in response to office politics, potential romance, and another surprise rhinoceros encounter. In Jean’s apartment, the space supports Berenger’s feelings of being trapped and threatened by

9 Claude Bonnefoy. Conversations with Eugène Ionesco, trans. Jan Dawson (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1971), 88.

10 Deborah B. Gaensbauer, Eugene Ionesco Revisited (New York: Twayne Publishers, 1996), 102. 38 Jean, his friend-turned-rhinoceros. By the time the audience sees him in his own

apartment, Berenger feels utterly isolated and alone.

Second, these narrowing spatial elements complement the increasingly personal

character relationships explored in each scene. Act One explores how people interact with society at large, and thus it positions Berenger among a crowd of colorful characters going about their daily business. Act Two, Scene One explores office power dynamics and hierarchies, including courtship and flirtation between men and women; this is where

Berenger, Dudard, and Papillon each display some type of romantic intention toward

Daisy. In Act Two, Scene Two, we see two long-term best friends working through personal quarrels and hurt feelings before hurting each other worse. Then, in Act Three,

Ionesco explores marriage and family life through Daisy and Berenger’s accelerated romance. Finally, the play ends with Berenger learning how to relate to himself. He processes aloud through ultimate questions of identity and personhood at the end of the play after progressing through every other relational layer, from superficial and distant to deep and intimate.

Third, the emotional tone of the play progresses from bright to dark. The street in

Act One is filled with life and quirkiness. While the script is dotted with comedy throughout, much of it is concentrated in Act One. Audiences could easily assume that

Rhinoceros was a farce, if they left after Act One. In Act Two, Scene One the mood is still light, but the humor is more personal. This the absurd elements of corporate bureaucracy with which contemporary audiences can laughingly identify, such as fighting with unseen management over work orders, office protocol, and arbitrary policy. There are also themes of workplace sexism, as the men treat Daisy differently as the only

39 female in the office, which satirizes the errors of the “boy’s club” mentality of the midcentury workplace. Overall, the humor is more pointed and sarcastic than Act One, with individual characters being the butt of more jokes. With Jean’s transformation in Act

Two, Scene Two, the play makes a dramatic tonal shift and enters surprising territory for the audience, as Jean transforms into a rhinoceros over the course of the scene. With each succeeding re-entrance from the bathroom, both Jean and the play transform into something frightening and urgent; the scene introduces elements of horror and intrigue that linger to the final curtain. Act Three, then, deals with the repercussions of such a serious shift. Berenger, Dudard, and Daisy try to cope with the uncertainties of their society in ways that are humorous, deluded, and desperate. The tone has morphed from one of shock and surprise to a slow burn of suspicion and suspense, as both the characters and the audience guess who will turn into a rhinoceros next. By Berenger’s final monologue sequence the tone is one of desperation with high emotional stakes. It even enters the realm of expressionism, as Berenger’s fears and sense of confusion are displayed visually with the physical multiplication and shifting of the rhinoceros forms to whom he delivers his final proclamations.

Finally, the point of view progresses from outward to inward over the course of the play. Act One positions Berenger as an outside observer considering his relationship to the world from the sidelines. He is a wallflower lacking ambition who is simultaneously content, confused, and mildly agitated watching the world go by.

Understanding this, Jean tries to inspire Berenger to engage more directly with society; he wants him to be more fashionable and cultured. Act Two, Scene One shows Berenger more directly engaged with the world of the office. Although still reluctant and bashful at

40 times, Berenger is not a detached bystander but an active participant in office life. Nancy

Lane says, “For the first time in Ionesco’s theater, the main character is shown working

in a public office with others, solidly placed within the larger context of society.” 11

True, Berenger finds ways to contribute to conversations and solves problems from a

transactional place of understanding. While he may not be aware of all aspects of office

politics, he is accustomed to his own place and can therefore respond to his colleagues

with more confidence and decisiveness. Act Two, Scene Two places Berenger on equal

footing, as he interacts with his best friend Jean. He alternates between driving the scene and following Jean’s lead. He reacts with strength and conviction because of the

familiarity of their relationship. As he notices Jean’s incremental changes, Berenger

grows in suspicion. He starts to compare Jean to himself to evaluate Jean’s mounting

rhinocerotic symptoms, which normalizes Berenger within the world. Berenger also

proactively attempts to phone the doctor, acknowledging his place and potential to

change the outcome of the scene. Then, Act Three follows an accelerated process of

introspection, as Berenger compares his personal values to Dudard’s and discovers his

own limits of compromise. Next, Berenger evaluates himself as a lover for Daisy, which

includes assessing his potential to be a husband and a father. Finally, when Daisy leaves,

Berenger is left fully alone to contemplate what it means to be a man and a human. He

ends the play be throwing himself into the fray and vowing to fight the rhinoceroses. He

has completed the process of determining his identity and refuses to return to the

sidelines.

11 Lane, 118. 41 Another Day, Another Rhinoceros

The action of Rhinoceros takes place over a period of approximately two to three

weeks in a non-specific year. Act One begins on a Sunday just before midday, and Act

Two occurs the following Monday, with a morning at the office followed by an afternoon

visit to Jean’s apartment. Act Three jumps forward an approximate amount of time, and

for the Baylor production, it was decided that a duration of two weeks would sufficiently

set up Berenger’s state of paranoia and Dudard’s descriptions of the ongoing office

repairs.12 As mentioned earlier, Ionesco structured the plot like a short story, which

accounts for the plot’s lean focus. Esslin claimed, “The action in a play of the Theatre of

the Absurd is not intended to tell a story but to communicate a pattern of poetic

images…While the Brechtian epic theatre tries to widen the range of drama by

introducing narrative, epic elements, the Theatre of the Absurd aims at concentration and

depth in an essentially lyrical, poetic pattern.” 13 Rhinoceros fits this criterion through its

narrowing approach to plot and theme, as it starts broadly and progresses to an intense

depth and concentration. However, Rhinoceros also differs from this particular tenet by

containing more of a traditional structure than plays Ionesco wrote previously. In some

ways, the plot follows the structure of popular mysteries, like the plays of Agatha

Christie, as characters transform one by one, and each scene involves the sighting of a

rhinoceros, to increasingly horrific effect.

Vos explains, “Grotesque subhuman imagery also dominates many of Ionesco’s

plays. The growing corpse in Amedee, the multiple noses of Roberta, and the green hair

12 Eugene Ionesco, Rhinoceros and Other Plays, trans. Derek Prouse (New York: Grove Press, 1960), 80.

13 Martin Esslin, The Theatre of the Absurd (London: Bloomsbury, 2014), 341. 42

of Jack [in Jack, or The Submission] all prepare the way for the metamorphosis of man into rhinoceros.” 14 The use of the grotesque to aid the poetically absurd was nothing new for Ionesco, and Rhinoceros upped the ante for the stagecraft required to bring his

metaphors to life. In Act One, the rhinoceros is spotted offstage by the townsfolk with

dust and rumbling sounds covering the street. The rhinoceros in Act Two, Scene One, is

still spotted by the actors offstage, but this time it’s closer and makes distinct

‘trumpeting’ noises. Mrs. Boeuf even recognizes it as her transformed husband. Although the animal is still placed offstage, the damage it causes to the stairway is visible to the audience. In Act Two, Scene Two, Jean transforms piece by piece on stage, which is the first time the audience actually sees a rhino. Jean is then accompanied by multiple rhinos in a herd, which includes rhinoceros versions of the porter and the elderly couple that live in the apartment complex. Finally, the rhinos in Act Three take over the stage through increasingly arresting imagery. They are described as more stylized and visually overpowering compared to the previous rhinoceros manifestations. The images are poetic but need to function as real threats and obstacles in the world of the play. Richard N. Coe

explains,

Rather than build up a semi-realistic illusion and then shatter it, Ionesco’s method is to start with an unrealistic – preferably an impossible, an inconceivable – situation, and then to develop it, still ‘impossibly’ and ‘inconceivably’, as far as it will go, yet at the same time forcing the audience to participate in what is not an ‘illusion of reality’, needing a recurrent and clumsy shattering, but indeed total reality itself, in all its nightmarish and contradictory absurdity.15

14 Nelvin Vos, Eugene Ionesco and Edward Albee: A Critical Essay (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1968), 32.

15 Richard N. Coe, Ionesco: A Study of His Plays (London: Methuen and Company, 1971), 40. 43

Truly, the initial conceit of Rhinoceros is fantastic, but if the notion of rhinos run amuck

were not explored beyond its portrayal in Act One, the play would remain only novel and

amusing. It is only in Ionesco’s full exploitation of the impossible situation that it

becomes threateningly real. Berenger begins Act Three waking from a nightmare of a

rhinoceros invasion, and the play ends with his nightmare having become real. Thus, it is

important to be careful in applying the term “absurd,” as Ionesco’s plays require a serious

commitment to the very real and impossible circumstances facing the characters. Despite

the play’s intentionally comic elements and masterfully funny lines, “absurd” cannot

mean silly. Otherwise, it would undermine the play’s entire progression.

Rhinoceros Transformations

Although Ionesco shared much information about the inspiration for Rhinoceros,

when pressed to explain more precise meanings, he often demurred so audiences could

decide for themselves. Once he responded, “Besides, personally, I have my own answer:

if I gave it away it would lose its force, like a key, it would have no further use and

become a pass key, another system of slogans leading to a new form of rhinoceritis.” 16

Ionesco sought to preserve the joy in the journey for the audience. He desired for their

responses to the play to be personal, rather than prescribed, and intended for audiences to discover them along the way. I decided to follow a similar approach when it came to deciding the specific reasons why each character chose to transform. Allan Lewis said,

“In The Bald Soprano all the characters are interchangeable since none has a separate

individuality. In Rhinoceros each of the central characters has a distinctly different

response to the demands of totalitarian conformity, which requires the giving up of

16 Ionesco, Notes and Counter Notes, 211. 44

specific individual differences.”17 With this in mind, it was important to identify the precise reasons why each of the characters chose to become a rhinoceros. Whether the audience or actors knew my decisions was not the point. It was important to have a plan in place for the play’s progression. Thus, each character’s rhinoceritis needed to be

diagnosed; it was imperative to know what it would take for each character to trade their

own skin. Lane suggests, “The dogmatists – Jean, Botard, the Logician – succumb to a

system because they cannot exist outside a system. It is dogma that reverses the terms,

making the irrational ‘logical’ and perverting reason into irrational rationalizing.” 18

These characters certainly share similar traits, but their individual dogmatic views have nuance and deserve to be understood on their own terms, since each transformation occurs at a different time and elicits a unique response from Berenger.

Before breaking down each character’s decision to become a rhinoceros it is helpful to define what exactly a rhinoceros is in the world of the play. The playwright could have chosen any animal, and a rhinoceros was the choice. However, the rhinoceroses in the script do not necessarily resemble rhinoceroses in real life. Instead, the scripted rhinos are built on a few exaggerated characteristics. In the play, rhinoceroses have a singular drive and are destructive of people or property that get in their way. 19 This means their actions are aimed, not arbitrary. Their skin is also described

as being solid, weatherproof, and hard. 20 The toughness of their skin suggests an

impenetrable quality; it acts like armor. When characters choose to become rhinoceroses,

17 Allan Lewis, Ionesco (New York: Twayne Publishers, 1972), 68.

18 Lane, 116.

19 Ionesco, Rhinoceros and Other Plays, 26, 69.

20 Ibid., 64, 107. 45 they become defensive about their decisions and armor themselves against the people protesting their actions. 21 Thus, the words “aimed” and “armored” describe their key traits. A rhino is aimed at foes and threats, with a horn serving as a site in a gun. A rhino is also armored against any dissenting views or expressions; the animal has the ultimate example of thick skin. In Rhinoceros, the animals eschew solitary tendencies and prefer to travel as a pack, barely distinguishable from one another and unified against outsiders.

With Mr. Boeuf already a living as a rhinoceros in Act Two, Scene One, it is assumed his wife will follow suit to join him some time following her dramatic exit. Mrs.

Boeuf represents someone who places familial loyalty above all other values. She proclaims her love for her husband and family duty when she leaps from the window onto her rhinoceros husband’s back. In Act Two, Scene Two, Jean becomes a rhinoceros to maintain the perfection and impeccability of his human standards. Jean strives to be the best in everything, humanly-speaking. When the rules change to those of the rhinos,

Jean has a new standard to which he can pridefully hold himself. In Act Three, the audience and Berenger learn that Mr. Papillon and Botard both decided to become rhinoceroses. Mr. Papillon chooses the life of a rhinoceros because his power and authority are threatened if he does not. Continuing his desire to dominate, as showcased in the office scene, Botard is in search of attention and relevance; he will attain both of these by becoming a rhinoceros. Next, Berenger notices that Logician has become a rhinoceros by looking out the window, as one rhino wears the character’s distinctive hat.

The Logician enjoys a level of recognition as an intellectual elite, even before demonstrating all the circles of thought through which the crowd can be led. The

21 Ionesco, Rhinoceros and Other Plays, 68, 93. 46

Logician transforms to keep this status and the transformation functions to display what

happens through excessive philosophizing without pragmatism or personal connection.

Then, the audience witnesses the beginning of Dudard’s transformation. He is a non-

committal vacillator who has gained favor by behaving as a “yes man” to his superiors.

He never quite stands for anything by nearly standing for everything. He becomes a rhinoceros through justification and relativism. Finally, Daisy is the last to change and leave Berenger alone. This is due to her conclusion of giving up; the challenge seems too great, and her relationship with Berenger proves fallible. Daisy and Berenger enter into a quick romance at the end of the play, and their hasty courtship serves to showcase the common human mistake of trying to find one’s worth in a romantic relationship with another person. Having discussed their connections to the central rhinoceros metaphor, the next section will turn attention to more detailed analyses of the characters, beginning with those only present in Act One and concluding with the last human standing. The following sections will also contrast each scene’s contribution to the evolving social world of the play.

The People in the Street

The characters in Act One reflect a small sampling of neighborhood life, effectively demonstrating the social norms of the play. The neighbors are highly interactive with one another, revealing expectations for people to socialize and identify with their fellow citizens. The street is not a thoroughfare for vehicles only; it is a place where people meet daily to buy, sell, gossip, and discuss the news. Pleasantries are welcomed and expected, and the community has an ingrained sense of togetherness, as characters collectively pursue topics of discussion as one or more characters introduce

47

them. The street includes characters from the middle to upper classes, with half blue-

collar characters, half white-collar characters, and no characters representing poverty.

Church is spoken of as a polite and common practice in the society. However, church

services are still in session during the scene’s dialogue, so none of the characters in this

particular scene are regular attenders. The community values loyalty, as shopkeepers woo

regular customers, and people take pains to be courteous to one another. Drinking is both

politely enjoyed and frowned upon, with moderation being the motto. There is also a

sense that people use patronage to express approval and espouse social graces. Money is

meant to be spent as a personal choice and endorsement of local business.

Of the ten characters, seven are referenced only by descriptors: Grocer, Grocer’s

Wife, Old Gentleman, Café Proprietor, Waitress, Housewife, and Logician. The other three have proper names and are featured in later acts: Jean, Berenger, and Daisy. Nelvin

Vos explains, “The use of characterization in the Theatre of the Absurd…reveals much about its vision of man and his world. / Very few characters in the Absurd Theatre have either family names or professions. They are not rooted within society. Instead they are defined by their function.”22 Indeed, the nameless characters, which make up the majority

in Act One, function as a cross-section of city life by representing a range of social strata and occupations. They function as a societal chorus, commenting on the events of the day. The characters without proper names are designed to inspire amusement but not to elicit empathy. They exist to populate the neighborhood and demonstrate groupthink. Vos says, “The curious people who are looking for the rhinoceroses pop in and out of their

22 Vos, 29.

48

windows, say the stage directions, like so many robots.” 23 The robotic nature he

describes comes in the form of repeated catchphrases spoken by multiple characters that

the audience begins to predict as the scene progresses. When each rhino runs by, the group of characters repeats the phrase, “Oh, a rhinoceros!” 24 To collectively express

their amazement they each exclaim, “Well, of all things!” 25 When the Housewife’s cat is

trampled, multiple characters reply by saying, “Poor little thing…”26 The delivery of this

dialogue will be discussed further in Chapter Four, but for now it is important to note the

impersonal repetition of slogans emphasizing the group mind. The shared sentiments of

the characters seem almost robotically programmed. The repeated phrases are peppered

throughout Act One, making it easy to identify how the group chooses to frame and feel

about each situation. Act One introduces Jean, Berenger, and Daisy as members of a

colorful local community of common folk. There is, however, one unnamed character

that stands out for having a rarer distinction and occupation than the rest, serving a more

blatantly specific thematic function.

The Logician is a featured comic character with a bedrock point of view. The play

blatantly brings themes of human reasoning and justification to the foreground of the

dramatic conversation through the Logician’s lessons. The Logician teaches the Old

Gentleman logic through a series of increasingly ridiculous syllogisms, all of which are to

be played straight. For example,

Logician: Here is an example of a syllogism. The cat has four paws. Isidore and Fricot both have four paws. Therefore Isidore and Fricot are cats.

23 Vos, 32.

24 Ionesco, Rhinoceros and Other Plays, 8-9.

25 Ibid., 10.

26 Ibid., 26-27. 49

Old Gentleman: My dog has got four paws.

Logician: Then it’s a cat27

This logic lesson spans pages 18-25 and serves as one half of the dialogue in the scene.

The other half is a concurrent conversation between Jean and Berenger discussing how

Berenger may better himself through improving his social status and becoming more cultured. With comically overlapping lines, the two conversations play like adjacent tennis matches between which the audience oscillates their attention. This not only deepens and develops the absurdities of the Logician’s logic, but it also draws several parallels between the two conversations. Jean and the Logician parrot one another saying nearly identical lines, while Berenger and the Old Gentleman follow suit. This suggests that Jean’s attempts to make Berenger more cultured and trendier are as absurd as the

Logician’s syllogisms, which is one of the first thematic attacks on people’s adherence to arbitrary social codes and systems.

Later in the scene, the Logician leads the characters in a pointless discussion of whether it was one rhinoceros that passed by twice or two rhinoceroses that passed by at

separate times. Prior to this, the townspeople have been obsessively contemplating a

question that arose from a quarrel between Berenger and Jean; “Which rhinoceros has

one horn, and which has two, African or Asiatic?” This debate dominates pages 29-37.

The Logician ultimately tries to stop the argument through reasoning, but the reasoning

never answers the question. Lance says, “The fact that he is honored as an intellectual

authority satirizes a society so easily duped; this does not mean, however, that the play

condemns the human intellect and its capacity to reason. On the contrary, it is the

27 Ionesco, Rhinoceros and Other Plays, 18. 50 perversion of human reasoning that leads to disaster.” 28 By introducing faulty reasoning in a humorous manner from the start, Ionesco primes the audience to notice it in subsequent scenes. The Logician is one of the first characters to pervert logic, which is ironic because of this exchange:

Old Gentleman: Logic is a very beautiful thing.

Logician: As long as it is not abused. 29

The Logician’s comment initially serves as a humorous punchline, but over the course of the play it will apply as a thematic warning. As mentioned previously, the Logician chooses later to become a rhinoceros, which is the ultimate expression of abused logic and excessive justification. So, through the nameless characters that only appear in Act

One, Ionesco introduces themes of social codes, groupthink, and faulty reasoning. He uses the street to showcase the societal norms that are ripe for havoc.

Office Protocol

If the street represents the realm of perception and public opinion, the office in

Act Two, Scene One, is a microcosmic sendup of power dynamics and bureaucracy.

Workplace hierarchies are discussed outright, as well as alluded to, and the office suggests a common mentality to get ahead and work one’s way up a company ladder. Mr.

Papillon is the boss of a legal publishing firm and its employees; Daisy, Berenger,

Dudard, Botard, and Boeuf, who is absent. As the only female employee, Daisy does not have the same status or advantages as the men of the office, and all but Berenger treat her as a lesser colleague, following an outdated “boys’ club” approach to corporate life.

28 Lane, 117.

29 Ionesco, Rhinoceros and Other Plays, 19. 51

Daisy is clearly smarter than Mr. Papillon or Botard care to acknowledge, and the script

wins favor for Daisy from the audience by accentuating the ignorance of her male

superiors. As for the hierarchy of the men, Mr. Papillon enjoys his leadership role.

Dudard has secured his spot as an up-and-comer, and though life is passing Botard by, his

past employment as a teacher has left a residual sense of authority. The scene opens with

Botard rejecting a newspaper story about the stray rhinoceros running loose, even though

Daisy reports seeing it as an eyewitness the day before; Dudard and Berenger take

Daisy’s side. This intraoffice quarrel is interrupted by the arrival of an out-of-breath Mrs.

Boeuf, who has been chased to the office by a rhinoceros. Lamont characterizes the scene as “a masterful caricature of the rancor of semieducated masses, lashing out at phantoms of their making, but refusing to recognize present danger.” 30

The first danger the characters notice but quickly forget about is that the

rhinoceros that chased Mrs. Boeuf also demolished the office staircase. Shortly after Mrs.

Boeuf’s arrival, the men have forgotten to worry about her or the rhino down below.

Instead, they start discussing the staircase. Rather than acknowledging the danger and

oddity of rhinos running loose downtown, they focus on the broken stairs. Sadly, their

indifference only intensifies thematically when Mrs. Boeuf realizes that the rhinoceros is,

in fact, her husband in a new form. All that the men care to discuss are Mr. Boeuf’s union

membership, insurance policy, and severance package before going back to talking about

the stairs.

Although the audience never sees Mr. Boeuf, together he and Mrs. Boeuf embody

specific characteristics that serve the theme of the rhinoceritis epidemic. Lamont

30 Rosette C. Lamont, Ionesco’s Imperatives (Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 1996), 143. 52 explains, “They are dangerous because they are supremely convinced that reason is on their side. Since they have spent a lifetime grazing on platitudes, it is easy to force feed them. Nor are bovine creatures necessarily peaceful; they trample the unwary. Thus, it is the most natural of transitions for a Mr. Boeuf to turn into a rhinoceros. 31 This explanation notes the humor in the Boeuf family name; in French the word means beef.

Mrs. Boeuf is written as a sympathetic character, although her lines come across as humorous and ridiculous because the rhinoceros metaphor has not reached the level of nightmarish reality by this point in the play. Consider this exchange:

Mrs. Boeuf: I can’t desert him, I can’t desert him now!

Papillon: If you want to divorce him…you’d be perfectly justified.

Dudard: You’d be the injured party.

Mrs. Boeuf: No! Poor thing! This is not the moment for that. I won’t abandon my husband in such a state.

Botard: You’re a good woman.32

Mrs. Boeuf saying, “Poor thing!” is a call back to the repeated sentiments about the

Housewife’s trampled cat in Act One. In both scenes, the characters veer off point quickly and reprioritize their concerns in ridiculous ways. The Act One characters care more about a cat than people, and the Act Two office characters care more about insurance and procedure than Mrs. Boeuf’s well-being or the fact that her husband is now a rhino. Most of all, both sets of characters react with quickly dissipating shock at the arrival of the rhinos before turning their attention and extended ire to more mundane things. The scene ends with Mrs. Boeuf literally throwing caution to the wind by jumping

31 Lamont, 143.

32 Ionesco, Rhinoceros and Other Plays, 51-52. 53

out the window to join her husband. She lands on his back in a saddle, to which Botard

says, “She’s a good rider.” 33 Though never seen directly by the audience, the image of

Mrs. Boeuf riding like an equestrian on the back of her rhinoceros husband in the name of familial loyalty is certainly the most striking absurd image of the office scene.

However, the other characters are no less absurd, and they each represent a distinct position of power or point of view.

Office boss Mr. Papillon gets his name from the French word for butterfly, which carries a few significant connotations that serve his characterization well. Mr. Papillon is showy, flighty, and experienced in transformation. He flaunts his position of power without demonstrating much substance. He proudly commands attention and is perfectly fine taking advice without giving credit.34 Like a social butterfly, he flits between

supporting the opinions of Dudard, Botard, and Berenger while stealing focus. Though

somewhat pedantic and exclamatory, he holds only relative control over the office, as the

clerks continue to disobey and gossip after multiple reprimands. Although a more

comical and less outwardly threatening character, it is valuable to consider Papillon the

reigning representative of authority. Consider Ionesco’s views on authority. He said,

“The new authorities are as unjust, as unacceptable as the others because men personify

them, that is to say they personify their own subjective passions, whose theoretical

objectivity doesn’t fool me. The official position, the decorations, the honors, the

reputation of such personages merely mask abominations and profound stupidity.” 35

33 Ionesco, Rhinoceros and Other Plays, 52.

34 Ibid., 51.

35 Eugene Ionesco, Present Past Past Present: A Personal Memoir, trans. Helen R. Lane (New York: Da Capo Press, 1998), 17. 54

Likewise, Papillon personifies his own subjective passions of power and lust. When

Daisy questions how the cohort will get down without a staircase, Papillon says, “[Joking amorously and caressing Daisy’s cheek] I’ll take you in my arms and we’ll float down together.” She replies, “[rejecting Papillon’s advances] You keep your horny hands off my face, you old pachyderm!” 36 Throughout the preceding scene he has dismissed

Daisy’s ideas and treated her as though she were incompetent. The irony is that Daisy shows more proactivity throughout the scene than Papillon, the proclaimed leader. His outer show may inflate his image to his male colleagues, but the audience and Daisy both clearly see Papillon’s underlying “abominations and profound stupidity.” As previously stated, Papillon’s power and privilege as a male business leader preclude his contraction of rhinoceritis, but his stupidity within these roles seals his positive diagnosis for the disease.

While Papillon represents the highest level of authority in the office, the other men vie for dominance of the lower rungs of the ladder. Botard dominates the scene with his colorful banter of blame and mistrust surrounding the rhinoceros sightings. So propelled by conspiracy theories and distrust of journalists, he openly rejects Daisy and

Berenger in front of the others for their eyewitness reports of seeing the rhinoceroses.

Botard opens the scene by mocking the newspaper’s report on the rhinoceros in the “dead cat’s column.” 37 His character holds particular relevance to contemporary audiences inundated with claims of “fake news” and “alternative facts” in mass media. Emmanuel

Jacquart notes Marxist phrases in Botard’s dialogue, as well as quotes inspired by

36 Ionesco, Rhinoceros and Other Plays, 50.

37 Ibid., 38. 55

Lenin,38 as the character decries the “collective psychosis” of rhino sightings and calls

religion the “opiate of the people.” 39 While Jean most directly emblemizes the Nazis, as will be discussed later, Botard represents the Marxist and communist ideals Ionesco was against. Ionesco said, “Marx was wrong; jealousy and pride, emotional forces, are just as responsible as hunger and economic necessity for our actions; they explain the whole of

History, and the initial fall of man. The authors of the Bible were in possession of a psychological truth that is both fundamental and universal.”40 Through Botard, he offers a

character that approaches religion with an arrogant dismissiveness, albeit in a humorous

tone. Botard says to Papillon, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to offend you. The fact that I

despise religion doesn’t mean that I don’t esteem it highly.” 41 Botard also reinforces

negative views of Marxism by proclaiming that he is motivated by superior intellect but

really being driven by emotion. Botard is older than all the other men in the office, but

his occupational position is comparable to Berenger’s, with Dudard seemingly outranking

them both and in line to succeed Papillon’s leadership. Lacking authority, Botard seeks

attention, relevance and a feeling of superiority in other ways. Ionesco explains,

I don’t like demi-intellectuals because in Germany they were all Nazis before the war, and in France they were very fascist. And now they’re leftist because Russia is a powerful country. So I don’t like the intellectuals because they don’t really think. They only think they do. They simply repeat slogans. They succumb to superior slogans. 42

38 Emmanuel Jacquart, “Ionesco’s Political Interplay,” in The Dream and the Play: Ionesco’s Theatrical Quest, ed. Moshe Lazar (Malibu: Undena Publications, 1982), 71.

39 Ionesco, Rhinoceros and Other Plays, 45.

40 Eugene Ionesco, Fragments of a Journal, trans. Jean Stewart (New York: Paragon House, 1990), 37.

41 Ionesco, Rhinoceros and Other Plays, 41.

42 Ionesco, interview by Jasmin. 56

Botard, is Ionesco’s mouthpiece for this type of “demi-intellectual” because of his reliance on such slogans. In addition to the Marxist phrases identified earlier, Botard uses

terms like “hoax,” “propaganda,” “conspiracy,” and “an infamous plot” to characterize

the alleged rhinoceros situation. When Botard accuses Dudard of being complicit in the

conspiracy, Dudard responds by saying, “At any rate, Mr. Botard, I’m not in the pay of

any furtive underground organization.”43 The slogan sound of Dudard’s line is a clue that he, too, is a demi-intellectual, although his character will be discussed in a later section. It is important to note, however, that the office is filled with different types of demi- intellectuals, with Papillon, Botard, and Dudard all fitting the bill in nuanced ways. The fact that each of them becomes a rhino is tied to their use of social codes for maintaining power, confidence, and normalcy.

The other two office characters, Berenger and Daisy, will also be discussed further later, but it is important to note how they seem the least at home in the competitive workplace. Daisy is an outsider as a competent female, which prompts the audience to view her with empathy. Berenger is not an outsider, but he is habitually late, trying to keep up, and not savvy to corporate ladder-climbing like the other men. The only other character featured in Act Two, Scene Two is the Fireman. He is the personification of “the authorities” in the play, and though limited in stage time, his inclusion is significant for giving a face to official government bureaucracy. The characters demonstrate a blind acceptance to the decision of the authorities throughout the play; there reigning political perspective is compliance. Though Botard ascribes to government conspiracy theories, his character is treated as an outsider by the majority for

43 Ionesco, Rhinoceros and Other Plays, 46. 57

his opinions, and most characters defer to authorities for an official point of view. Later,

in Act Three, rhinos destroy the fire station, and rhino “authorities” call Berenger on the

phone with disturbing messages. It is valuable for the audience to have a visual

representation of the human authorities in the form of the Fireman this early in the play to

better imagine their devolution into beasts in the final act. Thus, Act Two, Scene One

reveals common corporate and civic attitudes of the characters.

Rhinos in the House, or A Rhino’s Natural Habitat

After exploring themes of society in the street and power dynamics in the office, the investigation turns indoors to the social bonds of friendship, as Berenger visits Jean at home to apologize for quarreling with him the day before. Jean began the play as a fastidiously dressed human specimen with the knowledge of the proper way to do seemingly everything. He was intent on reforming Berenger into a better version of himself; the positive side of this inclination is Jean’s genuine concern for his friend. The negative side of Berenger’s proposed makeover is that it would mainly serve to reinforce

Jean’s own perfectionism and search for outward validation. Their argument began over the number of horns the rhino(s) had, but the true source of their quarrel was Berenger mocking Jean in public and hurting his pride. As someone who carefully crafts his reputation and values saving face, being publicly humiliated by Berenger with his dismissal and/or ignorance of social codes greatly upset him.

Act Two, Scene Two begins with Berenger attempting to visit Jean at home to make amends, but first, his knocking is interrupted by the Old Man and his Wife, who live across the corridor. They assume that Berenger was knocking for them. The Old Man is named Jean, too, which requires a humorous exchange of clarification. This common

58 name shared by two characters emphasizes the universal quality of the characters who, like John Doe, will soon come to represent the way an average person might respond to the play’s central conflict. The scene demonstrates the accepted social codes of visiting friends in person and seeking to resolve conflict face to face.

When Berenger finally wakes Jean, he finds him sick with a fever and skipping work. The scene then progresses to slowly reveal Jean’s symptoms as signs of rhinoceritis. Berenger’s use of pleasantries and polite questions show regard for his friend’s point of view. His attempts to look after Jean by taking his pulse or trying to call the doctor reveal a society in which people maintain courteous personal boundaries while proactively trying to help one another. As mentioned previously, this is the first time the audience will physically see a rhinoceros onstage, and it will be the only time they witness a character’s full transformation in stages. The scene is designed for that actor to change costumes bit by bit, through a series of exits, re-entrances, and lines spoken from the adjoining bathroom. While the specifics of this change will be discussed in Chapters

3 and 4, it is pertinent now to note that Jean’s change is not instantaneous. Ionesco could easily have written the play with a more immediate transformation, but that would have altered the reality he was trying to convey. For him, small changes add up over time, until a person overcome by ideology is no longer recognizable. Thus, Jean’s mood shifts in stages throughout the scene, with his dialogue revealing an incremental progression toward beastliness. Jean began the scene by saying to Berenger, “No, stay. You don’t worry me.” 44

44 Ionesco, Rhinoceros and Other Plays, 60. 59 Jean becomes progressively annoyed with Berenger, until he says, “There’sno such thing

as friendship. I don’t believe in your friendship…I’m not your dear Jean.” 45

By the end of the scene, Jean is a rhinoceros chasing Berenger offstage with his

rhino horn aiming for his former friend’s destruction. He has let go of all human pretense

and instead chosen to excel by holding fast to the new rules of rhino-hood. His arc

features some of the most polarized attitudes of the play, as he begins Act One calling for culture and etiquette and ends Act Two by trampling Berenger down. Lamont explains,

“Unlike his dreamer of a friend, Jean is embedded in the here and now, and takes his

pride in being ‘normal.’ This assumption is the Achilles’ heel of the future rhino who,

unlike the sensitive, intelligent Berenger, does not realize that life ‘is an abnormal

business.’”46 When I first read Rhinoceros many years ago, I initially assumed Jean

might be the protagonist. With his commitment to moderation, punctuality, courtesy, and

learning he came across as quite near-perfect. Only later did I realize these markers of

perfectionism were the precise reasons Jean could transform. He only understands

achievement through outward validation and places his need for personal success through

social gain above the needs and feelings of his friend. Berenger and Jean ultimately diverge over of their values of individualism. Berenger repeatedly forgives and defers to

Jean to save the friendship, while Jean proclaims, “It’s not that I hate people. I’m just

indifferent to them – or rather, they disgust me; and they’d better keep out of my way, or

I’ll run them down.” 47 Jean views people from a utilitarian standpoint, and if they do not

45 Ionesco, Rhinoceros and Other Plays, 63.

46 Lamont, 141. Lamont here is quoting Ionesco from Rhinoceros and Other Plays, 19.

47 Ionesco, Rhinoceros and Other Plays, 64. 60 help him achieve his goal, he gets them out of his way. Jean’s increasing disregard for

others is but one example of how his character most directly embodies the thematic

parallels to Nazism as an antagonist in the script. However, the seeds of this attitude were

present in Act One. For example, he displays a sense of superiority throughout his

conversations with Berenger but especially when regarding his cultured societal

preferences. Later, Berenger states, “Asiatics are people the same as we are…” However,

Jean exclaims, “They’re yellow, I tell you, bright yellow!” 48 While the other characters

argued about the differences between Asiatic and African rhinoceroses to expose the

triviality of their concerns, Jean is the only character who blatantly demonstrates a

fundamentally racist opinion. Coupling these traits with his love of status, it should be no

surprise that Jean concludes the scene by charging after Berenger shouting, “I’ll trample

you, I’ll trample you down!” 49

Act Two ends with Berenger fleeing Jean’s apartment. He stops to ask the Old

Man and his Wife for help before they scold him: “What do you think you’re up to disturbing people like that. What a way to behave!” 50 They slam the door in his face, only to reemerge as rhinos moments later. When Berenger, calls for the porter, he finds that he is also now a rhinoceros, and a herd of rhinos chase Berenger down the street. The

Old Man and his Wife offer bookends of comic relief to Jean’s intense scene of transformation, and they also serve to further the central metaphor. It is significant that the Old Man has the same first name as Jean because it reinforces the interchangeability

48 Ionesco, Rhinoceros and Other Plays, 31.

49 Ibid., 69.

50 Ibid., 70. 61 of characters and demonstrates how rhinoceritis does not a discriminate demographically.

Having the elderly couple reappear as rhinoceroses opens the metaphor to include people

who may not be physically strong or powerful in status, but their acceptance of ideologies

and relinquishment of individuality are no less potent or dangerous to others.

A Family of Rhinos is Called a Crash

As the play continues to narrow, Act Three resumes the exploration of general social themes while making room for issues of love and family. The full act takes place in

Berenger’s home and begins with him waking from a nightmare to a surprise visit.

Dudard, who was last seen in Act Two, Scene One, is calling on Berenger to check on his well-being, since it has been presumably weeks since he applied for leave from the office.

Berenger is paranoid of developing rhinoceritis and frequently checks his own symptoms to avoid a fate like Jean’s. It is unclear why Dudard specifically came to visit, but it appears as if he has few options for human contact. The two share a moderately developed friendship, and their conversation alternates between discussing office

colleagues, Berenger’s well-being, and the “problem” of the rhinoceroses. Berenger and

Dudard engage in much more philosophical dialogue than in previous scenes, and both

use the other as a sounding board, in hopes they can assuage each other’s fears.

Previously, Dudard only shared pleasantries with Berenger. Berenger admits in

Act One to being jealous of his affections for Daisy, but the two are never portrayed as

enemies or anything less than cordial with one another. At the end of their first scene

together, Dudard even invites Berenger out for drinks. Their kindness, though, does not

make them equals, and Act Three highlights their differences, particularly when it comes

to coping mechanisms and ideology. Lamont explains that in a private conversation,

62 Ionesco confided, “Dudard is Sartre.” 51 This loaded statement brings much understanding to Dudard’s function in the story and partially explains his wealth of stage time, as Ionesco had a public, passionate dislike of Sartre. He explained to Judith Jasmin in an interview:

Jasmin: Among the writers with a message who opposed you, you have an illustrious adversary in Jean-Paul Sartre. (Pauses for a response but does not receive one.) Well, it’s a classic quarrel.

Ionesco: Let’s not talk about Sartre. I don’t want to say anything bad about him.

Jasmin: For you, he’s anti-theatre?

Ionesco: He capitulates to everything. The illustrious man writes a philosophy inspired by Heidegger and deems it the last word in thought. In 1938 and 1939, he’s all set to join the Nazis. He may well have. He lives peacefully through the war, Germany is defeated, and he becomes a humanist again. Existentialism is a form of humanism, he says. Later, Russia becomes very powerful and he becomes a communist sympathizer. And in his last book, he embraces Marxism. With the revolt in Budapest, he says history has now changed. You have to keep step with history. He says he’ll never again shake a communist’s hand. When the revolt is quelled, he starts talking with the communists again. I don’t criticize him for being pro- or anti-communist. What I condemn is his weakness, his yielding…He’s simply the mirror of his time. 52

This interview paints Sartre as arrogant and chameleonic, with views that change according to popular opinion. Ionesco held Sartre in contempt for not publicly denouncing the gulags he once supported. He felt he wasted his influence by not actively advocating against human rights violations. This knowledge helps explain the close but distant nature of Berenger and Dudard’s friendship, as Ionesco knew Sartre as a close colleague who was ideologically incompatible with him. Similarly, Dudard begins the play as non-committal yet sympathetic to Berenger. However, he ends the play by

51 Lamont, 145.

52 Ionesco, interview by Jasmin. 63

choosing to join the rhinos; he says he will be skeptical of them but learn about them and

criticize them “from the inside.” 53 Dudard is a demi-intellectual, like Botard, but he is

not aligned with a party or organization, the way Botard is with his union. Placing

Dudard’s transformation at this point in the plot and in this setting serves two distinct

purposes. First, it demonstrates how relativism is rooted in the individual more than

dogmatism. Dogmatism requires the reverberation of a group to survive, but relativism is

slyer and more subversive. It thrives in the form of personal compromise, and Dudard’s

refusal to absolutely affirm or denounce anything is precisely what leads to his demise.

Therefore, it is appropriate to introduce this idea in the location of the home. Second, the

script includes multiple references to Dudard’s romantic interest in Daisy. Since Daisy is

the last woman left, as far as the audience knows, it is relevant and dramatically

interesting to place Daisy and her two potential suitors together in the same room. This

effectively strengthens the relational themes explored in Act Three.

Midway through the act, Daisy arrives with food and provisions to check on

Berenger, which immediately introduces an undercurrent of romantic rivalry to the scene.

Dudard greets her at the door with surprise: “Oh, it’s you, Miss Daisy…How nice to see

you, my dear. Do you often visit Berenger?” 54 Dudard tries but fails to engage Daisy in

conversation, while noticing her fawning over Berenger. Later, he remarks in an aside,

“She’s obviously very familiar with the place.” 55 The love triangle proves to be a prominent factor in Dudard’s ultimate choice to leave and transform. While his

53 Ionesco, Rhinoceros and Other Plays, 93.

54 Ibid., 87.

55 Ibid., 91. 64 temperament as a relativist predisposed him for joining the rhinos, his inability to feel at home hastened his decision to change. Rejected by Berenger and Daisy, he seeks another place to belong, adjusting his viewpoint to suit his new emotions. He says, of the rhinos:

Dudard: I feel certain scruples! I feel it’s my duty to stick by my employers and my friends, through thick and thin…

Berenger: It’s not as if you’re married to them.

Dudard: I’ve renounced marriage. I prefer the great universal family to the little domestic one. 56

Just as Ionesco described demi-intellectuals and Sartre, Dudard changes his opinion to fit his new situation and justifies his emotions. A few minutes earlier, he was flirting with

Daisy, but now he takes refuge in the popular slogan and ideology of the “universal family” while deriding the “domestic one” he fears Daisy and Berenger might create. In only four lines of dialogue, Dudard has dashed out the door to join the rhinos, leaving

Daisy and Berenger alone. Dudard’s comment on marriage reveals a society that supports traditional marriage roles. Since Dudard renounces this “domestic” marriage as he transforms into an animal, it reinforces marriage as a civilized human institution, which is further explored in the scene that follows.

After the sudden disappointment of losing yet another friend to rhinoceritis, the play shifts its focus into new thematic territory. Daisy and Berenger suddenly find themselves facing the possibility of being the last two humans left, which prompts them into an accelerated intimate relationship. Sensing the pressure to bring comfort and normalcy to the situation, Berenger acts on impulse and determines to reveal his feelings for Daisy. Over the course of the scene there are multiple times he says, “I love you.” It is

56 Ionesco, Rhinoceros and Other Plays, 93. 65

worth noting, however that she never reciprocates with the same words. Instead, she uses

more calculated, open-ended language, as evidenced by this exchange:

Daisy: Don’t think about Dudard anymore. I’m here with you. We’ve no right to interfere in other people’s lives.

Berenger: But you’re interfering in mine. You know how to be firm with me.

Daisy: That’s not the same thing; I never loved Dudard.

Berenger: I see what you mean. If he’d stayed he’d always have been an obstacle between us. Ah, happiness is such an egotistical thing! 57

Daisy likely does not know if she loves Berenger through their short romance under such

strained conditions, and her presence in his home is as calculated as her words.

While Dudard coped with the epidemic through justification, Daisy copes with the

epidemic by finding someone to care for, which happens to be Berenger. Although the

script hints at a potential courtship in the previous two acts, it never portrays a developed

romance between the characters prior to Act Three. Once Dudard leaves, Daisy and

Berenger seek fulfillment and distraction in an accelerated romance that plays like a

pseudo-marriage. The key phrase for understanding this section is Berenger’s line to

Daisy: “Oh dear! In the space of a few minutes we’ve gone through twenty-five years of

married life.” 58 Daisy and Berenger’s relationship progresses through exchanges that resemble distinct relational stages, such as courtship, newlywed bliss, the quest for

control, disillusionment, and reunion. It was helpful to break the scene down and to label

the sections accordingly. The fact that it all happens so quickly, particularly in contrast to

the slower action of the first half of Act Three, points to the absurdity of their

57 Ionesco, Rhinoceros and Other Plays, 95.

58 Ibid., 104. 66 relationship. These characters cannot possibly have developed the deep love for each other that they are trying to demonstrate.

To trace her character’s full development, Daisy begins the play as a compassionate, considerate, and capable woman who is overlooked by the misogynistic culture of her workplace. She is merely a kind friend to Berenger in the beginning, although the script suggests a mild romantic interest. After all, he is different than the other men at the office when it comes to status and machismo. By the end of the play,

Daisy and Berenger cling to one another as if they are husband and wife and potentially one of the last remaining human couples. After an argument about the rhinoceroses,

Berenger slaps her then apologizes for his violent outburst. This would be reason enough for Daisy to leave, but she forgives Berenger and accepts his apology. He says, “I don’t know what came over me losing control like that!” She replies, “It’s because you’ve run out of arguments, that’s why.” 59 She knows at this point that no attempts at love or playing house will be enough to avoid or hide from the rhinoceros problems outside. She and Berenger cannot find respite in one another because humans always disappoint each other. Thematically, their attempted relationship serves as a warning against seeking answers and stability from another human being, instead of through inner peace. One by one, Ionesco has stripped away the social structures from which people receive comfort and validation: society, the workplace, friendship, and finally, marriage.

In her final sequence, Daisy shifts her perspective, allowing herself to see the rhinos as beautiful. She allows herself to hear their trumpeting as music and see their movements as dancing. Being wrapped up in their beauty, she ultimately says, “They’re

59 Ionesco, Rhinoceros and Other Plays, 104. 67

like gods.” 60 Berenger cannot support her opinions, and scolds her, prompting her to

leave. Prior to this, she has demonstrated the headache and fever symptoms of the

disease, and it is clear she turns into a rhinoceros after leaving. If Daisy did not turn into a

rhinoceros, the play could function as a critique of socialization and mass opinion, while

offering dissenters, like Berenger and Daisy, some hope and affirmation in

commiseration. Daisy and Berenger could live with an “us versus them” mentality as

cultural critics and social outsiders, and the play could conclude with a heady, self-

righteous tone. Instead, the script tightens the focus even further by having Daisy leave

Berenger alone, thus zeroing in on the question of personal conviction. With each type of

human relationship called into question and found lacking, Berenger becomes the last

man standing, which moves the play into its final thematic discussion of reconciling

one’s own beliefs without any fellow support.

The Last Man Standing

Now at its narrowest point, the play ends with a three-page monologue from

Berenger. The following section will focus on Berenger’s character arc and development

in order to evaluate this final sequence and consider the play’s ultimate implications.

Berenger began the play as an amiable, unremarkable man lacking ambition and feeling

out of place in the world. In Act One, he says to Jean, “I’m conscious of my body all the

time, as if it were made of lead, or as if I were carrying another man around on my back.

I can’t seem to get used to myself. I don’t even know if I am me.” 61 Though he claims to not enjoy the taste of alcohol, Berenger habitually drinks in order to cope with his

60 Ionesco, Rhinoceros and Other Plays, 104.

61 Ibid., 17-18. 68 anxieties and help “the lead slip away.” 62 Similarly, Ionesco wrote in his journal, “I have

always felt ill at ease in my own body; hence my need for drink, for euphoric

stimulants…”63 This is one of many traits the playwright and the character share.

Berenger takes comfort in watching from the sidelines but also wishes for more human interaction. He is bashful when trying to interact with Daisy, the object of his affection, and he is worried about upsetting Jean or his office colleagues. He does not know how to climb corporate or social ladders and is often uncomfortable in his own

skin. He says, “Solitude seems to oppress me. And so does the company of other

people…Life is an abnormal business.” 64 This line is another expression of Ionesco’s

personal experience. He says in an interview, “I also feel in constant danger. I’m never

completely at ease with either myself or the world around me…I feel more lonely with

others around.”65 Despite these inner social anxieties, Berenger gets along with most

people and shows genuine concern for others, such as Mrs. Boeuf, Botard, and Mr.

Papillon. Esslin suggests, “The protagonist of this theater is not only cut off from God,

but frequently also from nature and society and even from himself. This sense of cosmic

homelessness has its source in the feeling that man is, in the etymological sense of the

term, ‘absurd,’ out of harmony with his world.” 66 This appraisal presents Berenger’s

sense of disconnection with the world as a universal problem and one additional way that

he functions as both an everyman character and Ionesco’s double. As the only character

62 Ionesco, Rhinoceros and Other Plays, 104.

63 Ionesco, Fragments of a Journal, 35.

64 Ionesco, Rhinoceros and Other Plays, 19.

65 Ionesco, interview by Jasmin.

66 Vos, 6. 69

that the audience can follow throughout the play, it is clear that Berenger’s reactions are

meant to be relatable.

Although he lacks direction and wherewithal in the beginning, Berenger emerges

as the hero of the play, as the only person holding onto human individuality. Critics often

refer to Berenger as an antihero. 67 However, this definition is problematic because of

self-serving or destructive connotations the term normally carries, connotations which do

not apply to Berenger. He may be reluctant and scared, but he ultimately does what he

believes to be the right and heroic thing. In an interview with Rosette C. Lamont, Ionesco

said, “My hero, if indeed he can be called that, is not so much an antihero as a hero in

spite of himself.” 68 His heroism results from a hard-fought fight against society and even himself. Berenger wrestles with the idea of joining the rhinoceroses, and at one point wishes he could bring himself to do so. His flaw is his honesty. Vos says, “In contrast to the mechanistic responses of the other characters, Berenger’s humanity allows him to perceive the purposelessness of life, intensifies his own suffering, and finally forces him to recognize his own absurdity.”69 He cannot ignore the common human feelings of inadequacy, weakness, or fear. He is completely honest with himself about the universal questioning of purpose; he wonders what his individual life is supposed to mean, and he

resists justifications to avoid these personal struggles. Ionesco experienced similar

personal pressures while growing up in wartime turmoil. He explained,

The basic experience is the Nazification of a country. I lived through this gradual Nazification. Many opposed it at first, but our numbers dwindled over time. One of our friends would say, "Surely, the fascists are wrong." Once he said this, we

67 Gaensbauer, 104.

68 Lamont, 137.

69 Vos, 18. 70 knew the system was drawing him in. Two or three weeks later, he'd join the party. So our numbers dwindled dramatically. We resisted morally. I was no hero. I kept quiet. But it's very hard to be a moral hero and not succumb to propaganda. I had a guilty conscience. I bothered people because I thought differently. 70

Ionesco held out personally but did not feel like a hero himself. Thus, it is easy to read

Rhinoceros, in part, as a way of the playwright working through challenging personal

experiences onstage. This is particularly relevant considering how Berenger is noted for

being Ionesco’s representative in four of his plays, as mentioned in Chapter One.

Berenger’s final monologue reveals a man left alone searching for how to define

himself amid the rubble of a broken society, but even though he is the last man left, the

scene has much to say about the social world of the play. Berenger begins the monologue worrying about Daisy, which speaks to the human desire to relate to others; he wants to need her and for her to need him. Then, his worries turn from Daisy’s well-being to the toll it takes on his conscience, which acknowledges the connected nature of human society and asserts feelings of responsibility toward others. Next, Berenger imagines

learning the rhinoceroses’ language, or compelling them to learn his, which finds him

contemplating the social power of language and the need to be understood. Berenger

asks, “But what language do I speak? What is my language? Am I talking French? Yes, it must be French. But what is French? I can call it French if I want, and nobody can say it isn’t – I’m the only one who speaks it. What am I saying? Do I understand what I’m saying?” 71 This portrays society as comparative construct for understanding oneself. This idea is explored further through Berenger’s next bit of stage business; he searches through photographs to remind himself what he looks like, and the stage directions reveal

70 Ionesco, interview by Jasmin.

71 Ionesco, Rhinoceros and Other Plays, 106. 71 that none of the photos are actually of him. Without fellow human beings to which he can compare himself, Berenger then laments his looks and tries to replicate the language of the rhinos, to no avail. He wrestles with wishing to be rhinoceros but ultimately cannot bring himself to change.

Lane suggests, “Berenger is like the raisonneur in Moliere’s comedies – the one character who speaks with the voice of common sense; he is the only one to point out the basic truth that it is normal to be human and absolutely abnormal to become a rhinoceros.” 72 In this way, he sees what the audience has seen all along. He is their window into the absurd world of the play, and by its end he alone acknowledges the absurdity the audience has been witnessing. Lewis suggests, “Berenger is not sure why he resists rhinoceritis, but he is a man free from ideologies and group slogans. His resistance arises from a deep natural element of man that seeks spiritual vitality and freedom of choice and is unencumbered by preset notions.” 73 Without slogans and ideologies to rest upon, Berenger remains true to his imperfect self. He humbly and honestly searches for meaning in the absurd world, despite his personal mistakes and weaknesses. He is the only character who is comfortable in his discomfort and does not presume to have answers. Berenger did not feel at home in the human world, so likewise, he cannot feel at home in the new world of the rhinoceros. He is too honest to be ruled by codes that deny any part of his humanity, which includes being too honest to ignore his personal doubts and struggles to hold onto his beliefs. In the final moment he says,

Now I’ll never become a rhinoceros, never, never! I’ve gone past changing. I want to, I really do, but I can’t, I just can’t. I can’t stand the sight of me. I’m too ashamed! [He turns his back on the mirror.] I’m so ugly! People who try to hang

72 Lane, 116.

73 Lewis, 72. 72 on to their individuality always come to a bad end! [He suddenly snaps out of it.] Oh well, too bad! I’ll take on the whole lot of them! I’ll put up a fight against the lot of them, the whole lot of them! I’m the last man left, and I’m staying that way until the end. I’m not capitulating! 74

Berenger began the play without a sense of purpose but ends it as a man fighting to embrace all of his human dignity. He discovers his own fears and beliefs over the course of the play and chooses to uphold them, even if standing alone. Here, the play ends.

Ionesco shared, “One of the great critics in New York complains that, after destroying one conformism, I put nothing in its place, leaving him and the audience in a vacuum. That is exactly what I wanted to do. A free man should pull himself out of vacuity on his own, by his own efforts and not by the efforts of other people.” 75 Thus,

Berenger’s journey leaves the audience with an answer, but it is not one the critic was looking for; perhaps Ionesco was right about demi-intellectual journalists in this particular case. However, this critic was just following human nature. Seeking slogans, systems, and ideological answers that have been determined by others is an easy yet counterfeit way to find a personal sense of freedom and purpose. The script does not explain how Berenger moves forward from this point because Berenger is Ionesco, and

Berenger is us. It is an individual act to acknowledge one’s fears and determine one’s convictions; no plot or play could prescribe a way forward that is meant to be personal. In his address Culture and Politics, Ionesco said,

Art takes us to the edge of mystery. If it does not give us the key – since no human effort can get it for us – it at least leaves the door ajar that opens on to the life beyond life, beyond nothingness. Better than philosophy lost in erudition, art

74 Ionesco, Rhinoceros and Other Plays, 107.

75 Ionesco, Notes and Counter Notes, 210. 73

poses the question of the insoluble problem, it confronts us with our own inquiry into our ultimate ends. And this inquiry is already the beginning of an answer.”76

Conclusion

Rhinoceros traces the rise of the dehumanizing herd through a narrowing progression of setting, character relationship, tone, and point of view, until the audience is left with one unlikely hero upholding humanity. Inspired by specific personal experiences, Ionesco attempted to capture a more universal problem of human nature. In the end, the play is not about Nazis or Ionesco, as far as the audience is concerned. It is about the dangers of conforming to popular ideologies against personal convictions. To do so denies the dignity of the individual by pushing her conformity over conscience, and it paves the way for others left outside the group to suffer. Relying on social codes alone is neither a safe nor sincere way of establishing one’s principles. Rhinoceros’ rich historical inspirations do not confine the play’s setting or limit its creative production potential. Instead, the play inspires artists to freshly explore its timeless ideas: as Ionesco said, “Since art is at once archaic and modern, very ancient and contemporary, it is what ensures our awareness of our continuity, of our identity.” 77 In defining what it means to

be a rhinoceros, the play ultimately points to what makes us human.

76 Eugene Ionesco, “Culture and Politics,” trans. Silvie Drake in The Dream and the Play: Ionesco’s Theatrical Quest, ed. Moshe Lazar (Malibu: Undena Publications, 1982), 166.

77 Ionesco, “Culture and Politics,” 166.

74 CHAPTER THREE

The Design Process

Introduction

The aim of this chapter is to outline the major creative decisions that guided the

design process for the Baylor production of Rhinoceros. After a brief explanation of the

structure of the design process and the development of the director’s concept, special

attention will be given to each of the design areas, including scenery, lighting, sound,

costumes, and properties. Thematic progressions outlined in Chapter Two served as

threads to guide the director and design team throughout their processes, and they

reappear in this chapter to further connect each design area to the others.

A Note on the Production Calendar

This production was the first mainstage production to be directed by a graduate

student under revised guidelines involving the production calendar. In past seasons,

directors and design teams followed a standard production calendar with detailed due

dates beginning twenty-two weeks prior to the first performance. It was decided by the

design faculty at their summer retreat that the standard production calendar was helpful

but perhaps too rigid to account for varied needs of certain productions. Therefore, it was determined to approach the following season with a looser approach to the standardized schedule; the director of each production would determine their own schedule in collaboration with the design team to allow for more flexibility. Unfortunately, as a graduate student, I had no experience using the former standardized schedule because the

75 show I directed in a previous summer series followed a different model. However, I was expected to help pilot this new approach and lead established designers through a production process I knew little about without much direction. At this point in the summer, my directing mentor had not been formally assigned due to changes in faculty schedules and responsibilities. Thus, when the scenic designer and I began the formal process at the beginning of August, we found we had started nearly 3-4 weeks behind the start time as outlined by the former standardized schedule. It was discussed in the postmortem that the scenic designer felt rushed in the early part of the design process due to this error.

Directing Concept

When I first began studying Rhinoceros, the play’s narrative structure and tonal shifts caught my attention. As previously mentioned, I began sketching notes and responses to the plot, and the image of a funnel emerged as a way to graphically represent several of the thematic and visual shifts within the play. To my thinking, the opening scene plays broader and shallower than any of the scenes that follow. It also takes place outside with ten characters, the largest amount present in any one scene, who talk over one another with a lively pace and musical delivery. This first scene is very bright and colorful, with distinct characters rich in personality. As the rhinoceroses take over, their sense of conformity affects each subsequent scene. For example, the lines and pacing become less playful, the discussions become deeper, and the action is moved further indoors, feeling trapped and surrounded. As I continued to read the play and visualize the world with these progressions in mind, the colors I imagined appeared more muted, the shadows longer and darker, and the playing space more isolated. The funnel image began

76 simply as a graphic organizer to help me plot the depths of conversations in relation to

the number of characters in each scene. With further study, the image of the funnel

changed to a funnel-shaped waterslide that started off as a bright, sunny, and cheerful

experience with friends before making a faster, darker, and surprising plunge that leaves one alone. The image of the “funnel slide” became an anchor for my understanding of the thematic progression of the play; the fun communal experience ends with solitary fright.

The script takes audiences to a dark and unexpected place, much like a thrilling ride with an unexpected ending. My directing mentor joked, “The image might also be appropriate because, when the rhinos take over, the world goes down the drain!” This image helped me connect many aspects thematically, which made it a good starting point for making decisions aesthetically with the designers.

The surprising nature of Rhinoceros was one of many reasons I wanted to direct the play. The contemporary social and political climate is particularly contentious, as people abandon values of listening, context, and mutual respect for groupthink, pre- judgement, and weaponized labels and words. I wanted to present a play that celebrates human dignity and fights for its preservation, and it was important to ease the audience into this thematic discussion through humor and suspense. Since Rhinoceros refuses to label or historicize its villains, it may be approached and enjoyed by all audiences, and hopefully it will leave them thinking about their own worth and the worth of others.

When considering Rhinoceros for the Baylor University community, in particular,

I saw opportunities to address contemporary social challenges of pack mentality while encouraging Baylor University Theatre audiences to engage with the rhinoceros metaphor on their own terms. As Ionesco valued individual experience over shared narrative, I

77 wanted to prompt audiences to consider two questions for themselves without explicitly

driving them to do so: (1) Would I stay true to my personal convictions, like Berenger,

even if the world around me changes? (2) How and when have I ever acted like a

rhinoceros? Baylor seeks to foster the skills of listening, compassion, discernment, and

fortitude that Ionesco’s script celebrates. However, the university’s goals of helping students to develop personal integrity and to think for themselves are often at odds with

contemporary society. The theatre department, specifically, cultivates skills of

collaboration among its student artists while encouraging them to develop their individual

artistic voices. As such, students benefit from seeing professors and peers approach

artistic expressions with individual lenses. Ideally, students grow in compassion and

understanding while learning about important issues such as institutionalized racism,

religious persecution, and hegemonic oppression of under-represented voices. However,

these initiatives of understanding are contrasted by a larger cultural landscape that is

heavily mediated, often harsh, and increasingly impersonal.

Students’ attempts at honest enquiries are challenged by the value of brevity that

prevails in contemporary media, as news soundbites and character counts on Twitter

inhibit contextual understanding. Similarly, the collectivist trends of interactive media

prompt users to simplify issues to obtain “likes” for affirmation; ideas are validated by

the amount of social engagement they receive, rather than factual and ethical integrity.

Truncated explanations of complex issues result in hasty value judgments that work

against the open environment the university encourages. Our tech-saturated culture

features misleading social media campaigns rallying groups around misinformation, and

advertisers’ algorithms reduce people to consumer profiles for peddling products. As

78 convenience, easy access, and increased bandwidth speed the flow of information, people

turn to categorizing the messages they receive and labeling the messengers to help

navigate and streamline the onslaught of information. Unfortunately, this results in

excessive pre-judgment of ideas and individuals and almost assures that the loudest, most

sensational voices receive extra attention.

In many ways the push for individual expression in social media forums can be

the very agent of conformity and “rhinoceritis.” Popular opinion shifts rapidly, and herd

mentality thrives on fast, convenient information and instant validation, which limits the

thoughtful consideration and appreciation of others. Social media often plays on the

human tendency to cease listening to someone whose values seem different from one’s own. The university champions dialogue, diversity, and discussion through academic investigation in a culture often marked by social fragmentation and misunderstanding. As people “block” or “unfriend” those with opposing views, they sequester themselves in a freshly conforming herd, just like the rhinoceroses. In fact, the “aimed” and “armored” traits of rhinoceroses outlined earlier are prevalent in the divisiveness of current politics and the so-called “cancel culture” of easy offense, as many readily disregard anyone with opposing views. The echo chambers of our mediated discourse leave little room for new ideas or contextualized differences, and the convenience of using online profiles as substitutes for the processes of active listening and getting to know people face-to-face makes treating someone as the “other” all the easier. Rhinoceros is a continually timely play because of human nature, and its lessons of discernment, conscience, and valuing human dignity are incredibly important for our local contemporary community.

Presenting the play at Baylor was motivated by the desire to prompt students, families,

79 and patrons in the greater community to consider their own connections to rhinoceroses by wrestling with the metaphors in real time.

A Note on Collaborative Procedure

As the collaboration with designers began, the conscious decision was made to confer with each of them individually before assembling for an initial team meeting. This decision was supported by my interim directing mentor as an effort for limiting groupthink in the early design stages. Since any design team working on a production of

Rhinoceros could easily anticipate the problem-solving required for making characters transform into rhinos onstage, we were leery of shifting into a mode of solving problems

too soon. We wanted to support and protect a period of aesthetic exploration before

committing to any particular design solutions as a group. The fact that the script of

Rhinoceros is so thematically critical of groupthink further reinforced our goals of

facilitating individual creative development first. Personally, I was interested in gathering

as many design options as possible for the rhino transformations, and this approach

seemed poised to yield more results.

The individual meetings proved incredibly rewarding, as they affirmed that the

designers and director were all on the same page concerning the play’s themes and the

production’s intentions before they conferred as a group. For example, the lighting

designer made some of the same comments about the script as the scenic designer; the

similarities were so strong that the director had to clarify and ask if the subject had been

discussed previously. This built confidence among the team that their initial designs and

reactions to the script were complementary. Similarly, I spoke with my directing mentor

about potentially using animal characteristics as inspiration for characterization and

80 costume design. I based this idea on the script’s multiple animal references, as well as the

cartoony mental pictures I sometimes saw when reading the dialogue. My mentor thought the idea was worth exploring but cautioned against sharing it with the design team too soon. Instead, she asked me to reserve the line of inquiry for the second or third team meeting. However, during my first individual costume meeting, the designer brought it up herself. She explained how she kept coming back to animal imagery when interpreting the text, and this shared instinct later became part of the collaborative design process.

After gathering each designer’s initial responses to the script, we began meeting as a group on a regular basis to build the world of the play.

Time and Place

While Ionesco’s ideas for Rhinoceros may have been inspired by watching friends and family follow fascists, he was careful to avoid limiting his message to personal, historical specifics. His play is more than a parallel to WWII and can speak to any society engaging in dangerous pack mentality. Throughout history, humans have born the burden of groupthink and often experienced severe consequences as a result. While we were intrigued by the play’s connections to history, the designers and I were particularly excited to tell this story for its relevance to people today. Jacquart says, “Rhinoceros is a parable of sorts condemning all totalitarian regimes. This is why it contains no references

which can be associated with a specific time and place. This device, which is one of

Ionesco’s favorites, reflects his aspiration to universality rather than a flight from

action.”1 With this in mind, it was decided to build a world for the play that could not be

1 Emmanuel Jacquart, “Ionesco’s Political Interplay,” in The Dream and the Play: Ionesco’s Theatrical Quest, ed. Moshe Lazar (Malibu: Undena Publications, 1982), 71. 81

identified with one specific time and place. While Daisy makes a few culturally specific references to French dignitaries midway through Act Two2, these references are made so

late in the play and are not preceded by any other consequential references to specific

times or places. Therefore, the production team felt the freedom to relocate the setting

from a rural French village and pursue more abstract design solutions that were less

specific to a particular time and place. Expanding these options supported a broader

theme of interchangeability that was suggested by the script and championed by the

designers. As described earlier, both the young Jean and the old man named Jean became

rhinoceroses, which made them look like the Dudard, Daisy, and everyone else in their

rhinoceros form. It was important to the entire design team that the fable of Rhinoceros

feel applicable to anyone at any time, and that would include exploring the concept of

interchangeability throughout the design process.

Scenic Design

Following our thematic discussions, the scenic designer explored a mid-century

modern aesthetic. As design elements of retrofuturism are resurging in popularity, they

possess an interchangeable quality when applied to a set. Therefore, the set could reflect

any time period between the middle of the century, when Rhinoceros was written, and

current events of today. The designer was drawn to the clean lines and geometric shapes

of the architecture and gathered several images to share as visual research. One image in

particular stood out to him and became one of the aesthetic anchors for our further

2 Eugene Ionesco, Rhinoceros and Other Plays, trans. Derek Prouse (New York: Grove Press, 1960), 90. 82 exploration and guided the scenic design toward four key decisions (fig. 3.1). First, the angles represented how lighting could dramatically transform the appearance of the surfaces. Second, the interconnecting quadrilaterals inspired us to think of the buildings as interchangeable building blocks; we viewed them as parts of a whole that could be rearranged. Third, the clean lines and angles suggested human planning and organization, which helped illustrate how rhinos can damage carefully laid plans; the symmetry almost begged for a rhino’s destruction. Fourth, the cityscape that dominates the image affirmed our instincts for a more metropolitan setting. It pushed the design toward more of a

Figure 3.1 This research image became a visual anchor for design choices.

83 neighborhood setting in a modern city, as opposed to a provincial town street or suburban

square. Each of these decisions inspired by this research image are further detailed below.

First, since the scenic designer intended to dramatically transform the scenery with lighting, he intentionally incorporated angular structures that would require illumination from multiple directions. Additionally, the scenic designer, lighting designer, and director all agreed that rhino silhouettes were important to the story. Thus, the scenic designer included large geometric planes in each of the scenes, for the purpose of catching light and/or shadow. The decision to add more angles into the set also prompted the scenic designer to construct a three-dimensional cityscape as the backdrop for the production, instead of using a two-dimensional painted drop.

Second, with the backdrop being realized in three dimensions, it was decided that all other scenic elements would be three-dimensional and situated to emphasize sharper angles. The scenic designer conceived of four wagon units that could be rearranged for each scene. The units were quadrilaterals of varying sizes that could represent different buildings, depending upon their positioning. For example, the platform used for the café in the first scene was repositioned to serve as Jean’s bathroom in the third scene.

Similarly, each of the platforms were designed to be both indoor and outdoor settings, depending on the scene. With the first scene being set outside, each of the units served as an exterior portion of a building. The following scenes required the repositioning of the units to simulate an indoor setting, which visually reinforced how the subsequent scenes took the audiences further inside the character’s lives and explored the play’s philosophical themes in a deeper way. The desired effect would be for the audience to feel as if the set was “opening up” for them to investigate the story further. With the

84 wagons moving to create a new specific setting in each transition, we hoped to achieve a cinematic look and mood for the transitions. Our hope was that the first scene would feel like an establishing wide shot for the world of the play, then the transitions to subsequent scenes would seem as if a camera were carrying the audience deeper into the city to investigate the story, even inside the characters’ houses.

The rhinoceroses are a mysterious force, as is the disease that causes humans to transform into them. The image of the rhinoceros develops throughout the play and is represented differently in each scene; it is an image to be unpacked and revealed along the way. In Act One, the rhino is represented by offstage sound effects supported by actors shaking on stage, as if the ground were rumbling. Act Two, Scene One incorporates dusty debris and visible damage to the staircase as evidence of the rhino’s presence. Act Two, Scene Two features a human character fully transforming into a rhinoceros, and Act Three shows an expressionistic, overpowering herd of rhinos. They would not only take over the stage, but we decided to extend their threatening presence into the audience by lighting actors dressed as rhinoceroses in the side portals to cast large rhinoceros silhouettes onto the house walls. We also decided to place actors in rhinoceros costumes throughout the audience in the final scene.

Since the rhinos restructure the society through their progressive takeover, the design team decided it was appropriate to restructure the set by rearranging the same pieces for each scene. Similar to the recurring rhino imagery, we wanted the same set pieces to be viewed in new ways in each scene, as if a new angle could reveal new information about the world of the play. We wanted the audience to be able to watch the set deconstruct physically during the performance; between scenes, the platforms would

85 be repositioned and reassembled. The rearrangement of the wagons would help reinforce the exploratory nature of the play. It is a play with an idea for the audience to explore through Berenger’s journey, just as he makes his way through the shifting set pieces of the production while investigating the problem.

Figure 3.2 This collage is part of the visual research that influenced the building designs. The wagon units were designed with similar shapes and aesthetics.

86 C A B D

Figure 3.3 The original design ground plan for Act One featured all wagon units (A-D) to create a neighborhood streetscape in front of the three-dimensional skyline.

Figure 3.4 The cast responds to the Housewife’s trampled cat in Act One.

87 Fly Floor

B A C

CL

Figure 3.5 The ground plan for the office in Act Two, Scene One

Figure 3.6 Mrs. Boeuf visits the office in Act Two, Scene One.

88 A

D

Figure 3.7 The ground plan for Jean’s apartment in Act Two, Scene Two

Figure 3.8 Jean changes in the bathroom of his studio apartment in Act Two, Scene Two.

89 Fly Floor

A

CL

Figure 3.9 The ground plan for Berenger’s apartment in Act Three

Figure 3.10 Berenger locks himself inside his apartment away from rhinos in Act Three.

90 Third, the clean lines, geometric shapes, and symmetry of the designs would be used to emphasize this destruction. The set design for Act One uses the least amount of negative space, with set pieces spanning the breadth of the stage. This scene also has the buildings arranged to create a large centralized playing space that includes the apron.

Each successive scene after the opening has an increasing use of negative space that requires the audience to fill in the blanks of the composition with their imagination.

Therefore, it was important to begin the show with a balanced stage-wide composition to later deconstruct. At this point in the process, we also decided that the audiences should actually see some destruction of the scenery in Act Two, Scene One without seeing the rhino who caused it. We wanted to see the effects of the rhino’s destruction and actually watch part of the set break, in this instance the staircase. The scenic designer brainstormed and tested various solutions for the collapsing staircase with assistance from the technical director throughout the construction process. It was decided that the stairs would break in such a way that clearly damaged the clean lines of the mid-century modern design. A chunk of the banister wall of the outdoor staircase would break off along an irregular cracked line and fall inward on the remaining stairs while obscured by dust. The scenic designer also drew up plans for how the risers and treads could break and fall as accompanying effects.

Finally, with inspiration from the research image’s cityscape, the production’s decidedly metropolitan take on the story was meant to add greater emphasis to the rhinos’ destructive nature. As a design team, we wanted to highlight the value of civic planning and the social codes of the community to imply that rhinoceroses take the world apart on multiple levels, beyond just destroying property. We wanted the visual vocabulary of the

91 play to support the idea that human plans only work when people maintain their humanity. By situating the opening scene in a city neighborhood nestled among skyscrapers and high rises, we hoped to raise the stakes of the destruction. The rhinos would damage more than property, they would damage a well-planned and socially supported way of life. After deciding how the audience would see the destruction of the set in Act Two, the scenic designer worked backward and looked for ways to enhance the design of the opening scene to further demonstrate that civic planning was an important value to the community. To this end, he added a water fountain that followed the same modern aesthetic as the buildings, as well as additional set dressing elements, like modern signage and cosmopolitan furniture. The scenic designer planned to make it a practical water fountain so that the splashing water would add live, atmospheric sounds of peace. Though the audience wouldn’t see the street actually destroyed, as the onstage destruction did not take place until Act Two, the designer wanted to present the audience with a pristine vision of the world before it started falling apart. The fountain was designed to support this goal.

The metropolitan setting also guided some of the color choices. The concrete grays were selected because of their modernity, as well as their ability to reflect dramatic changes in lighting and color. The box-like nature of the buildings reinforced the planned nature of the communities through unnatural lines, with visual inspirations ranging from

Lego blocks to tract homes of the fifties and sixties. This metropolitan setting also opened opportunities for the production to incorporate a sense of fashion, or what is considered fashionable for this particular society. We decided, then, that we would reuse certain visual elements, like furniture, across the scenes to connect the play. This was not

92 a decision driven by budget; the repetition of furniture and set dressing could create a baseline of trends for the play’s world and serve as another visual representation of interchangeability. For example, the armchair in the waiting area of the office became the armchair in Berenger’s apartment. Jean’s side table is also the same as Berenger’s coffee table. The design team wanted to suggest a society with commercial decorative trends, similar to the popularity of contemporary interior décor stores with mass-produced items like IKEA, At Home, or Target.

Following these four main design decisions, the scenic designer progressed through the practical portions of the process with assistance from the technical director.

With the aesthetic direction set, the team explored more specific details of midcentury- modern design to incorporate into the production. One of these key details also helped solve the problem of Jean’s onstage transformation. In a brainstorming session, the scenic designer and director determined that one of the walls of Jean’s bathroom would be made of glass bricks to allow light to shine through while obscuring specific forms. This decision altered the design of Jean’s bathroom to include a small corner for a crew member serving as Jean’s dresser to hide with his rhinoceros costume accessories. From outside the bathroom, the audience would see Jean transforming behind the glass bricks, while the dresser would be out of sight in a corner that was made to look like an additional portion of the bathroom. The designer also created a pass-through segment of the platform unit to act as an entry hallway into Jean’s apartment that also further enclosed the portions intended to stay hidden.

Additional mid-century design details were selected with regard to offering the lighting designers opportunities for creating interesting shadows. For example, the door

93 unit used as the home of the elderly couple was designed with shutter-like horizontal

wood panels on either side of the doorframe. This allowed the lighting designer to

backlight the door, as if something was glowing from within, which could foreshadow

the couple’s transformation. The same door unit was later used in Berenger’s apartment, but this time it would be lit more from the front to accentuate the wooden texture. The scenic designer also used details in wood to give a sense of history and wealth to the office set in Act Two, Scene One. Another recurring design feature involved windowpanes and panels of varying translucence. Each scene used some combination of frames and translucent panels through which the characters viewed their world. These decisions continued the scenic designer’s goal of giving the lighting designer multiple surfaces to use for catching light and casting shadow. It also thematically supported the

scenic designer’s idea of representing how characters view the rhinos through different

lenses. For example, windows are obscured or covered by some type of translucent

material in each scene, except for the windows in Berenger’s apartment in the last scene.

Berenger is the only one who sees the rhinoceroses for the threat they truly are, thus he

needs no filter. The designer decided that the final scene would incorporate a scrim

several feet upstage of the main platform to catch the light and shadow outside of

Berenger’s apartment, instead. Thus, the reintroduction of rhino images could still have a

layered look to them at the end of the scene, while Berenger’s apartment could feel more

isolated, as it looked out onto darkness in the beginning.

Lighting Design

Explaining how the scenic designer kept dynamics of light and shadow in mind

while designing the set is but one example of the way the lighting and scenic designers

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collaborated closely from the beginning of the pre-production work. As mentioned

earlier, the lighting designer and scenic designer had very similar personal responses to

their initial readings of the text. From the start, the lighting designer expressed the belief

that shadow should play a key role in the design of the production. To this end, the

lighting designer explored dramatic angles with the intent of casting long shadows for the

rhinoceroses. He and I agreed that a rhino itself had a menacing silhouette, but it could

appear more fearsome by casting a larger shadow. The lighting designer also agreed that

for the shadows to express the most power, they should be absent from the first scene and

introduced gradually. The play would then follow a progression of darkening and

lengthening shadows.

The first half of the production followed this darkening progression of atmospheric lighting until it introduced special lighting effects to enhance the first rhino

transformation. To begin, Act One was designed with a bright, cheery outdoor look. The

design team wanted to use visual cues to mislead audiences into thinking they were about

to experience a more purely broad comedy, similar to a farce or musical comedy in its

visual rhetoric. Act Two, Scene One was lit with warmer tones, to give the office more

sophistication. Some shadows would come from the structural elements and placement of

the practical lights, but they would not be featured elements of the scene beyond adding

to the warmth of the room. Additionally, the scene uses a small frame of negative space

for the audience to imagine the rhinoceros running in circles around the building at the

street level. The design of Act Two, Scene Two incorporated the most intentional use of

shadows to that point, with lights positioned to create silhouettes on various surfaces. As

95 it would be the first time the audience would see a rhino, the designer wanted to play on

the audience’s imagination of the beast through silhouettes, before revealing it.

As mentioned previously, the glass bricks would obscure Jean’s transformation

into a rhino. The lighting designer used the bubbled glass as a surface for casting very

specific silhouettes at defined stages in Jean’s transformation. However, this was only

one of the ways the lighting designer actively employed shadows to tell the story in this

scene. The designer was inspired by the use of shadows and dramatic lighting angles in film noir classics (fig.3.11). To mimic some of these moods, he installed footlights along the apron of the stage, as well as booms for side lighting at sharp angles spanning the stage’s width and the apron’s depth. The side lights would cast certain characters in bright lights while keeping others in shadows. These would help highlight the contrast in

Jean and Berenger’s points of view in this scene. They would also add a sense of mystery and unknown through more overpowering shadows.

Figure 3.11 This research image shows the designer’s desired shadow contrasts.

96 Figure 3.12 The actor playing Jean stands in his pajamas with the glass brick bathroom wall illuminated behind him and wearing gloves as the first phase of his transformation.

Figure 3.13 The actor playing Jean has completed the final step of his transformation behind the glass bricks, and the elderly couple scold Berenger from their doorstep.

97 Act Two, Scene Two would be the first scene to specifically use footlights and

sidelights to support Jean’s transformation. Shadows from the footlights inherently

highlight facial features in unique ways by virtue of their placement. For example, the

lighting designer explained that human noses could be made to look like rhinoceros horns due to facial shadows cast by the footlights (fig. 3.14). The footlights could then be used to foreshadow and highlight characters who transformed. In addition to the footlight shadows, the lighting designer also added greenish gels and textured gobos to the footlights to help Jean look sicklier and less recognizable as he transformed. The increased use of footlights progressed the visual design vocabulary of the production beyond the safer, more recognizable settings of the first two scenes. Finally, the lighting designer determined to use shadows specifically for casting rhinoceros silhouettes from each of the portals flanking the stage during the rhino herd section at the end of the scene.

Figure 3.14 This research image shows a horn-shaped shadow cast by footlights.

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The backlights and sidelights would simultaneously illuminate the actors’ forms while casting shadows of their rhinoceros silhouettes across the stage. The lighting designer built on the rules established in Act Two, Scene Two for the transformations in Act

Three. Although Daisy and Dudard do not fully transform in front of the audience like

Jean, the use of footlights with shifts in both color and texture would continue the visual language that the audience saw established previously. The use of rhino silhouettes from the end of Act Two only expanded in Act Three.

The rhino silhouettes in the final act also incorporated a layer of multiplicity that was not used previously in the play. The director prompted the lighting designer to research lighting a singular subject with multiple instruments with the intent of casting multiple shadows (fig. 3.15). This led to a discussion on the thematic benefit of multiplying shadows. As previously mentioned, a rhino by itself is menacing, only to be made more fearsome by casting a longer, darker shadow. If this concept were taken further, one rhinoceros could appear to be many when lit by multiple sources. We talked about how the fears surrounding social problems and injustices in contemporary society only seem to grow with the more attention they receive. For example, the lighting designer shared an anecdotal story of how surprised he was to learn that the Westboro

Baptist Church was a comparatively small congregation made up of a few key families and their friends. The group, which has gained much notoriety and publicity for its hateful rhetoric and free speech stunts, was much smaller than he assumed. The lighting designer shared dismay at how much more power the group seemed to gain from media attention. Similarly, as rhinos symbolize groups who dominate through herd mentality, such as the fascist converts from Ionesco’s childhood, they can appear to be more of a

99 threat than they actually are through amplified propaganda and media attention. To

explore this idea visually onstage, the lighting designer planned to light the rhinos from

multiple angles to cast their shadows on multiple surfaces. Simultaneously lighting rhinos

with different colored lights from different angles could minimize interference of the

resulting shadows and multiply rhino silhouettes across the stage while employing a

wider color palette.

The overall lighting design for the production followed a strict progression of

light to dark, complemented by short to long shadows. As this progression concluded at

Berenger’s last monologue, the final sequence was designed to be more expressionistic;

the lighting designer sought to support Berenger’s inner conflict with dramatic shifts in

color and texture. Once Dudard and Daisy are gone, and the rhinos begin to emerge from

the shadows, the stage could be more expressive of Berenger’s singular point of view.

For example, the colors could shift to warm and comforting tones when Berenger imagines himself peacefully at home among the rhinos, before shifting to scarier hues as he releases that fantasy. With an emphasis on using shadows to prompt audience imagination and tracing Berenger’s journey across the story, the lighting design was set.

Figures 3.15 These are examples of multiplying shadows through multiple sources.

100 Sound Design

Similar to the lighting design concepts, the sound design for this production leaned heavily into the progressive deconstruction of the world of the play. The sound designer began by collecting sample songs and effects to share at the first meeting with the director. This preliminary playlist began with several jazz standards with a lo-fi mix.

The sound designer wanted the production to begin with an air of familiarity and comfortability. He imagined the music playing underneath the dialogue in Scene One, as if the café onstage were playing background music. As jazz combines various solo instruments with personality for a nuanced and intricate composition, the jazz underscoring helped to highlight the sense of individualism and personality desired for the characters at the start of the show.

The sound designer’s research led him to the work of jazz musician Jun Miyake, whose compositions on the album Lost Memory Act 2 sounded like deconstructed jazz standards. Several of the songs began with melodic, recognizable jazz sounds that would morph into stranger, more distorted sounds as they progressed. The sound designer felt that Miyake’s work expressed the devolution of society in Rhinoceros. He saw these

“deconstructed jazz” tracks as opportunities to bridge the happy jazz from the opening and the experimental haunting sounds he imagined for the ending. He heard the final scene being underscored by distorted sounds and drones, similar to the sound design from

David Lynch’s Eraserhead. However, he reiterated that the Lynch comparison may be too extreme. I assured him we were open to exploring his full design ideas and told him how the lighting designer and I saw opportunities for expressionism in Berenger’s final monologue. With this assurance, the sound designer made a plan to progress the

101 underscoring sounds from jazz to distortion across the entire show. At the director’s

request, the jazz was peppiest at the opening and trended darker and more bluesy before directly incorporating the Miyake songs. Though he did not include fully Lynchian sounds in the final scene, the end underscore became a tonal soundscape expressing

Berenger’s tortured mind.

With the baseline progression of the play’s underscoring determined, the sound designer turned to focusing on the specific rhinoceros sounds the show required. While the underscore would help, Jean’s transformation and its resulting rhino herd moment at the end of Act Two, Scene Two needed support beyond music. The sound designer enlisted his assistant to create sound effects to accompany the incremental stages of

Jean’s transformation. One idea was to blend human voices with animal sounds for transformed characters. The assistant sound designer also added noises like running water for Jean’s bathroom faucet and a light buzzing sound to accompany the slight brightening of the bathroom light as Jean transformed. For the rhinos themselves, the designer was surprised to learn how docile and non-menacing rhinos actually sound in the wild. The rhinos’ ferocity is more a product of Ionesco’s imagination than biological fact, and the

“trumpeting” sound that the script calls for does not come from an observable rhinoceros behavior. Therefore, the sound designer mixed sounds of several animals in the wild, including lions, elephants, and rhinoceroses, to create the voice of the play’s rhinos.

Similarly, the sound effects of trampling herds were created by blending sounds of cattle stampedes and galloping horses.

The rhino calls, trumpetings, and galloping crosses were all designed with spatially mixed sound effects for the performance. Thus, the sound designer consulted the

102 director to carefully plot the imagined locations of each of the rhinos. The sound designer

also insisted on placing the department’s large subwoofer on the edge of the playing

space in the stage left portal. This powerful piece of equipment quite literally shook the

foundations of the theatre as the rhinos ran past; the audience could practically feel the

destructive effects of the rhinos through this very physicalized amplification. It was the

designer’s way of getting the most use out of the available technology to help the

audience experience the play.

Costume Design

The costume design for this production followed a similar progression as the

design areas previously discussed; costumes would move from appearing colorful and individualistic to looking darker and more muted by conformity. The costume designer took much inspiration from illustrations and animated films, including the animal imagery mentioned previously. The main goal was to visually express as much personality and distinction between characters as possible in Act One. The costumes should be vibrant to help the audience feel a greater sense of loss when the characters trade their human forms for the dreary, conforming look of the rhinoceroses. To this end, the costume designer included many accessories and layers in each of the characters’ looks. For example, Jean wore a three-piece suit, complete with a hat, gloves, cane, and distinct yellow shoes. The Grocer and Grocer’s Wife wore matching aprons, while she wore a unique felt hat and cowgirl boots, and he wore a vest, bowtie, and glasses. The

Grocers also followed another of the designer’s rule for the production; couples dressed to match. Thus, the Grocers wore various shades of pink, which was partly inspired by the designer’s animal research and the fact that flamingoes mate for life.

103 In fact, the designer used animals to inform the look and color scheme of each character. The Café Proprietor was inspired by a crocodile because of his bite and slimy disposition. The Waitress was kept in monochromatic clothes to follow cultural expectations for wait staff, but her uniform included zebra print. Jean was fastidiously dressed in every color common to a rooster to accentuate his prideful strut, and Botard’s look took inspiration from a river badger, with tweed and natural fibers that helped him seem older and out of place among the other characters. The most direct animal-inspired design choice was the spotted cowhide print on Mrs. Boeuf’s skirt. Since “Boeuf” means

“beef” in French, the costume designer decided to “go full Dallas,” as she said, when creating a wealthy, luxurious look for Mrs. Boeuf’s dominant personality; if audiences caught the visual bovine reference, she hoped they would enjoy the joke. The costumes accentuated the human form with tailored looks for many of the characters; they also emphasized human differences by flattering several diverse body types, which was important to both the director and the costume designer.

By highlighting the human silhouette in the characters’ original looks, the costume designer visually prepared the audience to better notice the contrasts of the rhinoceros silhouette. Changing the character’s silhouette was the guiding principle behind the rhino costume. The costume designer chose harem pants for the rhinos because they were the opposite of a tapered leg. She used bulky grey sweaters to increase the actors’ size and obscure their natural contours. She added scarves that altered the human neckline, connecting the head of the rhino directly to the oversized shoulders. The rhinos’ hands were accented with black latex gloves featuring cut out fingertips. The gloves appeared to seamlessly connect with the long-sleeved Henley-style undershirts to

104 give the rhinos a continuous, unified look; the design substituted clothing for skin. Each

of these silhouette-altering elements were informed by careful study of actual rhino

physiology. The main challenge was the head.

From the beginning, we knew the most important problem to solve would be

portraying the rhinos’ heads. The costume designer explored several options and invited

my continued input. We studied the wireframe horse heads from the Broadway productions of Peter Schaefer’s Equus and various other solutions in which the rhinoceros head could be worn as a headdress. We also experimented with scrim-like mesh covering a rhino-shaped frame so that human features that could peek through. A few weeks into the design process, the costume designer expressed concern that each of her attempts at costuming the rhinos to that point seemed to conflict with the world of the play. She said, “It looks like the characters themselves are wearing rhinoceros costumes, as if the characters were going to a costume party dressed as rhinos in the world of the

play.” She then proceeded to implore my patience, as she had devised a new solution that

appeared promising but also seemed like a big risk; the rhinoceros faces could be built from modified gas masks. The idea was exciting, but we proceeded with caution at first.

Aware that the image of a gas mask was particularly loaded with meaning, we determined to seek feedback from other designers and mentors to test how an audience

might receive the image. After a few days of consideration and receiving a lot of positive

feedback, we unanimously agreed that the gas mask was a creative risk worth taking. It

was the best design solution for the world of our production.

The gas mask decidedly capped off the non-human silhouette we were creating.

The eye holes allowed the actors to see out, but the mask covered the rest of the face so

105 well that audiences and Berenger could not make out any facial expressions the rhinos might be making. It made the rhinos otherworldly and unrelatable to humans. The positioning of the mouth filter successfully lengthened the face of the rhino, while also providing a visual element that supported the strange muffled noises the sound designer had created for them to make. Following the script, the costume designer made some masks with one horn, and some with two. The horns were painted a starkly contrasting white, and the masks themselves were painted in black and dark gray shades to blend the looks and cover seams. Though supportive of the design solution, two of the directing mentors advised us to find ways to incorporate industrial materials similar to the gas masks earlier in the production to get the audience used to seeing something with that texture within the world of the play. We wanted to avoid pulling the audience out of the moment by making them consciously acknowledge for too long that the rhino head was a modified gas mask. With this advice, the costume designer added a similarly styled gas mask to the Fireman’s costume in Scene Two. Although the Fireman did not wear the mask, it hung from his uniform in a position that was consistent with visual research images. The use of industrial rubber gloves was also discussed.

In the end, the gas masks effectively alienated both Berenger and the audience from the rhinos in a powerful way. The masks accentuated how fearful it can be to try and interact with someone or something one does not understand, especially if that unknown entity is a foe. As we determined earlier, rhinos are “aimed and armored” against those they dislike; they make no effort to connect with their enemies. The horns accentuated the “aimed” portion of the rhino personality, and the gas mask filter embodied the “armored” part. While the bulky shoulders of the costume suggested being

106 “armored”, the gas mask capitalized on this characteristic, as rhinos choose to filter out anything they determine to be harmful. The gas masks drew associations with war time, disaster, and propaganda. Most importantly, they were scary, and their sleek design could excellently cast menacing shadows. They were the culminating visual statement of full transformation and loss of individuality; they completed the actors’ progression through light to dark (fig. 3.16).

Figure 3.16 These sketches show Jean’s costumes in each stage, from human to rhino.

Properties

Prop design for this production was the last element to be incorporated, as the prop master had a full production schedule prior to Rhinoceros, and it was determined that props would assimilate into the overall aesthetic decisions of the other designers. For example, the scenic designer made several set dressing suggestions to support his designs, while leaving the prop master to determine the specific details of their design, creation, and execution. Each scene was supported by a wide array of hand props to facilitate many options of stage business for the characters. Three main principles guided

107 the prop designs; exploring character, fleshing out the world of the play, and allowing minor anachronisms to obscure specifics of time and place.

For character-driven props, the prop master supported the Logician with a cigarette, notebook, and chess set, complete with a timer. Similarly, Dudard’s visit to

Berenger’s house was supported by a poker set and snacks, including an oversized box of animal crackers. To highlight Daisy’s attempts to control her crumbling world with care and thoughtfulness, the prop master added a lacy doily and small flower vase to Daisy’s picnic basket. The prop master heavily supported the decision to explore Berenger’s paranoia in Act Three by dressing his apartment with trash, dirty clothes, sanitizing spray and wipes, and Berenger’s own makeshift map of the city, which he used to chart rhino migrations on his coffee table.

To support the world of the play beyond character-specific props, the prop master fully stocked each neighborhood business and location with relevant, useable items. For example, the grocery store was supplied with crates of produce, a hand truck, and a refillable flower display. The café had pub bins for restocking restaurant essentials, complete with salt and pepper shakers, napkins, cutlery, and condiments. The prop master made a particular point of filling the office in Act Two, Scene One with working props that made noise. The rubber stamps, typewriter, and staplers added to the authenticity of the office through sound and functionality.

The prop master also consistently and intentionally selected props from various time periods. For example, Berenger had a modern remote control for his television, a corded telephone, and an antique radio. The production used classic Coca-Cola logos alongside modern Maruchan Cup-O-Noodles boxes. The Old Gentleman’s wooden cane

108 could appear to be either an antique or an upper-class luxury item, but the Old Lady’s

metal walker had contemporary tennis balls covering its stops. The Housewife carried a

dated basket of bread alongside shopping bags from Prada and Gucci. The props were not

designed to blatantly stand out as anachronistic, but instead they were meant to help the

audience accept the play as happening in a time lacking definition and open for interpretation. These choices mirrored the choices of the costume designer, who used a range of clothing items from Dickensian to contemporary times to accessorize base costumes built mostly on tailored, mid-century modern silhouettes.

Overall, the props continued the thoughtful approach to the material exemplified by the full design team. The prop choices were more than serviceable because the prop master embraced telling the story through her work. She included several details that added to the story, even though they were not required. For example, the newspaper

Botard reads at the beginning of Scene Two carried the masthead Odd Times, which was a delightful joke for those who noticed. The props master also added hat racks to two

scenes, which later contributed to important bits of blocking. The trash in Berenger’s

apartment was thoughtfully curated to reflect his personality, with the makeshift map

including a flask because of his drinking habits. Similarly, the contemporary wall art in

Jean’s apartment supported his desire to appear as a fashionable modern man.

Conclusion

All in all, the design process was as collaborative and creative as desired. Each

designer put their individual mark on the production, which contributed to a richer, more

unified whole. The entire team supported and contributed to the vision of the production

and solved problems as a unit. The team’s support for each other went beyond

109 expectations of professionalism, as the designers agreed on the thematic elements they

wished to highlight and were genuinely excited to tell this story. Each design area helped illustrate the progression of the play, as expressed by the director’s concept image of the funnel slide. Together, we suggested an interchangeable time and place without being bound to environmental specifics and showed the darkening power of conformity controlling individuality. The individual design areas combined their efforts to create a cohesive and signature audiovisual vocabulary for the Baylor production of Rhinoceros.

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CHAPTER FOUR

The Rehearsal Process

Introduction

This chapter aims to describe the collaborative construction of the human and

rhino worlds of Rhinoceros, from general auditions to the final dress rehearsal. The

actors, designers, mentors, crew, and director influenced each other in countless ways through their creative contributions – so much so, that it’s difficult to accurately trace or

attribute every artistic development. Ionesco wrote, “Obviously I see better when I don’t

see myself; I see better when I see only other people…”1 It is fitting, then, that his play

was brought to life by a collective of individuals focusing on telling a story as a team.

Throughout this chapter, particular emphasis will be placed on the efforts employed to

develop a sense of style, tone, and delivery consistent with Ionesco’s unique brand of

Absurdism using the contemporary sensibilities of the student actors. The process

required a variety of directing tools and techniques, many of which were honed or

discovered as the rehearsals progressed. This chapter will attempt to detail the project’s

growth through problems solved and lessons learned in the journey toward the final

production.

1 Eugene Ionesco, Present Past Past Present: A Personal Memoir, trans. Helen R. Lane (New York: Da Capo Press, 1998), 25. 111 Auditions

While auditions require actors to prepare material on an individual basis, the

proceedings are often just as focused on the development of ensemble dynamics as they

are on individual performance. With its core theme of group conformity versus individual

identity, it was important for Rhinoceros to feature a strong sense of connection among

the ensemble. Although only one character survives to the end, the play is not a star

vehicle. While Berenger is the last man standing, it is important that audiences keep

guessing which characters will remain human and which will turn into rhinoceroses over

the course of the play. This requires all actors to play their roles with strength of purpose

and distinct characterization, as if the story could shift and follow a different character’s journey to the end. Thus, the first quality I looked for in the auditions was an actor’s ability to contribute to a strong ensemble.

Second, it was important that the actors featured in the first two scenes play their roles with distinction and personality to explore the themes of conformity overtaking individuality within the ensemble. To maximize the sense of loss the audience feels when characters leave and conform, the characters needed compelling differences and unique qualities to be identifiable and sympathetic to the audience. Ionesco’s characters are emblematic and serve to flesh out his thematic ideas. He said, “My theatre is apsychological, and the characters in it are types, even archetypes.”2 On the surface, this quote may suggest a flippant approach to characterization, but since the characters in

Rhinoceros transform into rhinos at different times and for different reasons, I suggest

characterization is even more important. As detailed in chapter two, having characters

2 Rosette C. Lamont, Ionesco’s Imperatives (Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 1996), 139. 112

transform for different emblematic reasons requires a greater sense of distinction between

the characters for the thematic ideas to be more fully explored. Thus, actors needed to

stand out in auditions with distinct characteristics, thereby proving they could contribute

to a connected and colorful ensemble.

Furthermore, with the first scene featuring so many characters speaking over each

other, it was important to cast an ensemble with varieties of vocal timbre and pitch.

Actors needed to stand out both vocally and physically to contribute uniquely to the group and have their individual viewpoints heard. As explained in chapter three, the costumes were designed to show maximum individuality in the first two scenes before conformity set in, and the designer took much inspiration from animation designs and techniques. So, we set out to find actors who could mix a cartoonish yet grounded quality of characterization playing motivated tactics as individuals against a group.

The audition process for Rhinoceros began on the first Thursday of September

with a cattle call style audition. This first round served as the general audition for three

projects that took place in the fall semester at Baylor; mainstage productions of Antigone

and Rhinoceros, plus two graduate-directed scenes for the workshop series. Following

administrative recommendations, students prepared a minute-long monologue of their

choice. The directors of Antigone and Rhinoceros decided that they would like to hear

actors perform with more stylized text, so auditioning actors were also tasked with

performing two stanzas of their choosing from one of the following Lewis Carroll poems:

“You are Old, Father William,” “’Tis the Voice of the Lobster,” or “White Knight’s

Song.” The co-directors of Antigone were interested in hearing the actors’ use of

heightened language, and for Rhinoceros, I wanted to hear how the actors handled the

113 nonsensical nature and musicality of Carroll’s verse. This proved beneficial, as several

actors stood out by making sense of Carroll’s odd ideas with vocal variety. The directors

of the two mainstage shows decided to attend callback auditions for each show, in order

to make the most informed selections and ensure the best cast for each project. Notes and

feedback from fellow directors were welcome and helpful throughout the process.

Callbacks for both productions were held the following Sunday, with Antigone auditioning in the afternoon and Rhinoceros auditioning in the evening. Actors were asked to prepare sides according to character. The Baylor undergraduates are trained to use professional dress and protocol in auditions, and since some actors were called back

for both productions, they anticipated similar callback processes for each show. This

created an opportunity to liven the atmosphere and playfully disrupt expectations to

ensure fresh performances from actors attending callbacks for a second show in the same

day. After some opening remarks, the actors were divided into four groups of ten in order

to audition all ten characters in Act One simultaneously. All groups received a call time

to return and were encouraged to rehearse the scene selection before performing together.

Then, in a change from Antigone’s auditions, all actors were invited to watch the other

groups perform the first two sides, rather than waiting in the hall and auditioning one

group at a time.

The goal was to approximate the lively, bustling atmosphere of Act One within

the callback. We also opted to audition in the Mabee Theatre, which is a thrust space,

even though the show would ultimately perform in the Jones Theatre, a proscenium

space. The thrust space helped the room feel livelier, with each group having a healthy

amount of audience members on three sides responding to them. It also enabled the

114 directors to move around the perimeter of thrust space to take notes on individual

performances, so fewer details were lost. This proved beneficial for evaluating sides with

so many performers participating at once. The group scene selections were slightly longer

than others in order to give adequate time to evaluate each performer, and the stage

managers helped set up chairs and tables for the actors to use at will for the sidewalk café

section of the street. During the rehearsal period and between scenes, technicians played music inspired by the design concept to add energy to the room; the selections were from the two volumes of Esquivel’s 1961 space rock albums Infinity in Sound.

After each of the groups performed the first side featuring the townspeople, they were instructed to form a line in the stage right vomitorium. Then one at a time, each actor crossed the stage and performed a rhinoceros transformation. Their first step onto

the stage was as a human, and their final step off of the stage was as a rhinoceros. The music set a fun and humorous tone for the actors to explore their transformations, and framing this portion of the audition as a group activity made it more of an enjoyable and freeing game for the actors to play together. After all four groups had performed their opening side and made their rhinoceros transformation walk, the actors all participated in a quick series of lineups on stage for the director to visually assemble potential groupings

for further casting. After this, the first cuts were made for those who were not called back for any other roles. However, two actors earned callbacks to cold read for additional characters because they stood out in the first round.

The rest of the evening consisted of a series of five shorter sides, beginning with sides featuring the most characters and ending with sides featuring the fewest. Several actors were dismissed after each reading. While everyone performed a selection for each

115 role for which they were called back, not every actor performed each side for each

character. The actors received quick instruction before each side to explain the tonal progression from comedic to fearful across the final scenes. After the first three rounds, the characters of Botard, Papillon, and the townspeople were mostly set, and the attention turned to casting Jean and Berenger.

Due to his standout work in the first round and his particularly engaging rhino transformation, one of the actors who was initially called back for Berenger was invited to read for Jean as well. The actors auditioning for Jean and Berenger were asked to disregard Jean’s scripted blocking of entering and exiting the bathroom; they were to play the scene as if Jean transformed into a rhino in full view of the audience. Although, the designers already had other plans for achieving his transformation, I wanted to see how each actor interpreted this change. It soon became clear that the actor best suited to play

Jean was the one added to the role after the first round. This round of auditions

significantly shifted the focus of the remaining process; the role of Berenger had thus far

been elusive, but having the role of Jean set reorganized the options for Berenger in my

mind. The next scene focused on Berenger, Daisy, and Dudard.

After seeing one actor play a particularly kind and humane version of Dudard, my

casting mentor suggested reading him as Berenger, instead. The actor made a sincere

connection with the character, and it was the first time the role felt alive and inhabited,

rather than performed. The casting team saw a new side of this particular performer that

best embodied Berenger. In the end, the actor I initially saw as the frontrunner for

Berenger became Jean, and my first choice for Dudard became Berenger. This was

116 confirmed when we reread the two actors as Jean and Berenger together, since they had not been paired to that point.

The final focus of the auditions was finding the right chemistry for the love triangle relationship of Dudard, Daisy, and Berenger. One particular actor did not seem exactly right for playing Jean earlier but nonetheless stood out positively for the risks he took while auditioning for the role. He was asked to read for Dudard, instead, and suddenly the key male roles were in place. The evening began with six women under consideration for the role of Daisy. Since Daisy is featured in three key scenes, some were released early on. By the end there were two outstanding choices for Daisy. One took a more cerebral approach, while the other seemed more motivated by emotion. Both brought exciting opportunities to the role, and in the end, Daisy was selected for her chemistry with both Dudard and Berenger. The co-director of Antigone and the casting mentor confirmed the decisions, and we narrowed the group of forty actors who attended callbacks down to a final cast of twelve.

First Rehearsal and Read-Through

The first rehearsal took place approximately six weeks after the callback auditions. It was important to set a tone for the type of collaborative working experience from this first session. To begin, the cast worked through a series of improvisation scenarios. They also played a game of “Rhino Tag” to begin exploring rhino physicality from the beginning. Once a player was tagged, they became a rhinoceros and made a physical and vocal transformation before going on to tag someone else. The game continued until all cast members were rhinos. Next, the cast read through the script, scene by scene, while engaging in thematic discussions throughout. After each scene, I asked

117 the actors to explore their characters’ physicality based on the scene they had just read.

This began with a series of walks and crosses embodying different aspects of their characters; this set the tone for the type of physical exploration expected throughout the rehearsal process.

The cast also read through the script and to explore vocal characterization; it was a creative session that reaffirmed the casting choices from the audition process. The actors brought personality to the read-through and also became more aware of how specific and demanding the pacing of the dialogue would become by the end of the first scene. They were instructed on how to tag and overlap their lines according to particular script notations and motivational beats. Most of the notes on delivery were to help shape the overall musical quality and pacing of each scene. The readthrough was primarily encouraging and exciting for everyone involved until the cast reached the fourth scene, in which Dudard visits Berenger at home. When I read the scene previously for personal study and rehearsal preparation, I read it quickly as a scene that finally put clear philosophical concepts in the voices of the characters. Silently, it read like the thematic, dialogical highpoint of the play in personal these readings. In the voices of the two actors playing the roles, however, the scene revealed itself as the section with the biggest liability and potential to undercut the momentum of the play.

It was fortuitous to recognize this challenge of pacing so early in the process.

Right away, the actors were encouraged to look for layers within the dialogue beyond the sincerity and seriousness that came from reading the philosophical statements at face value. The text itself would not move the scene forward; the actors would need to play tactics to add tension and move the scene along. The read-through concluded with a more

118 fluid pace from the final scene with Daisy and Berenger’s final monologue. The session

concluded with thematic discussions and the charge to help define and develop the

human world of the play so the rhinos could then mess it up.

Blocking Rehearsals

To maximize the potential for the cast to collaborate and build the human world

of the play together, each scene was called separately multiple times per week. While it

would be easy to block the office scene in one or two long rehearsals, it was more

beneficial to the creative goals of the production to rehearse with the office characters for

hour-long segments four or five days per week. Since entrenched social codes and

cultural institutions figure so heavily into the plot and thematic content of the script, it

was important that the social microcosms featured in each scene had a lived-in quality, a

daily routine, and a sense of history.

Daily shorter rehearsal sessions proved particularly valuable for developing the

everyday routine and familiar relationships of the neighborhood characters in Act One. It

was important to establish a sense of normalcy for the world before the rhinos destroyed

it, and daily rehearsal helped build this daily routine. The actors also found the

memorization work particularly challenging for this scene, and they benefitted from more repetition spread out across rehearsals. I decided to focus on the opening scene first, as it

involves the most characters and has the most challenging pacing and interplay of

dialogue. I began by setting a few zones for spacing and rules for socializing for the

actors to use in exploration. For example, each character was assigned a territorial area on

the stage over which to take ownership. Actors also established rules of engagement for neighborhood interactions. As rehearsals progressed, the actors continued to develop

119

more nuanced relationships between their characters, which brought the cityscape to life

in greater detail. Setting these zones and rules to help the actors interpret the characters

was a starting point similar to an organic, developmental directing style I had used in prior projects at Baylor, namely a post-modern devised piece and a collection of Italian

futurist short plays. This organic approach could only take the scene so far; Ionesco’s

Absurdism requires more specificity, particularly in group scenes incorporating so much

repetition. After initial exploratory blocking while actors became grounded in the space, I

shaped the opening scene with more specific blocking. Berenger was blocked to always

be slightly aloof and apart from the group. The townsfolk also moved in supportive

clusters, surrounding whichever speaker they happened to be affirming at the time.3 Each subsequent scene required a slightly different approach to blocking.

The second scene, which takes place in the office, includes very specific stage directions that are vital to the plot. It almost blocks itself out of necessity because most of the physical actions are written into the script, rather than interpretive. For example,

characters must be positioned near windows to react to rhinos and make specific exits out

the windows, as required by the text. This is very different from all of the other scenes,

which require more interpretation. Since the second scene took place on an intricate two-

storied set, the actors were not able to rehearse on the finished platforms and stair units

until tech week. This meant that blocking was approximated throughout most rehearsals

and required more necessary spacing adjustments once the set was completed. We

marked off makeshift second floor platforms during rehearsals, but it was difficult to

accurately simulate the farcical nature of going up and down the stairs until the set pieces

3 The townspeople’s affirming cluster formations connected to the director’s concept image of the funnel-shaped slide; the characters moved like small groups in circular rafts around the edges of the scene. 120

were fully complete and cleared for safety. So, this scene was more loosely blocked with

placeholder movements early on.

Act Two, Scene Two, which takes place in Jean’s apartment, was developed by

combining pre-blocked movements and organic blocking choices, while making time to

explore and motivate Jean’s physical transformation into a rhinoceros. We found that it

was helpful to set some anchors of physical action from the start, so that the actors did

not wander or feel lost during the characters’ more philosophical discussions. We then

used these anchored actions to build the scene’s movement together with a more organic approach. The actors understood their motivations well from the beginning, and it became a process of finding what worked best together. The costume designers offered support and advice early on, which helped set Jean’s blocking around four stages of physical transformation. As his movements were established, we experimented with positioning Berenger on different planes from Jean, so that the audience could be clued into Jean’s transformation sooner than Berenger; letting them in on the secret increased the feeling of suspense. Jean’s intermediate physical changes shaped the arc and flow of the scene overall by determining Berenger’s complimentary positioning. For example, some of Jean’s physical changes were to go unnoticed by Berenger, which meant positioning Berenger on a different plane for certain exchanges so that the audience could see Jean changing when Berenger could not. These blocking choices were intended to build suspense until Berenger finally did see the changes in Jean that the audience had been seeing all along.

Act Three is one long scene taking place in a single location, but it worked best to treat it as four distinct French scenes, or movements, when it came to blocking: the duet

121 with Berenger and Dudard, the trio adding Daisy, the duet with Daisy and Berenger, and

Berenger’s final monologue. The plan was to initially block more organically, but it

became clear that the particular actors in the second half of the show benefited from more

planning and pre-blocking on the part of the director. Since Act Three involves even

more philosophical discussions than the previous ones, the actors needed similar anchors

of physical action to explore each scene. This was even more important in Act Three

because there are fewer physical actions required by the text, which made it even easier

to get lost in the long segments of philosophical dialogue. After a few sessions of looser

blocking, I began pre-blocking one section at a time and working it through with the

actors, beat by beat, to later make adjustments and finalize movement. The actors were

more successful with this approach.

Act Three went through significantly more blocking changes than Acts One and

Two, and it helped that the actors had a baseline of set blocking with which to begin before changes were made. The footprint of the playing space in Berenger’s apartment in

was small compared to previous scenes, which required more specific staging and

spacing to keep the actors from covering each other in a small space. There were also no

scene changes in the final act, which added the challenge of incorporating a variety of movement to keep visual interest in a single location. Since the first half of the act is a

drawn-out section of philosophical dialogue, the actors could not take their lines at face

value and immediately know what actions to play when it came to several of the major

beats; this was truly a portion of the show that needed time to be discovered and

developed collaboratively in rehearsals. This also meant that Act Three’s blocking would

122 inevitably be altered more along the way, unlike previous scenes that are more straightforward in their interpretation of the characters’ actions.

Finally, Daisy and Berenger’s portion of the final act shifts into a more urgent pace than the prior portion with Dudard. Following a section of dialogue that plays like an accelerated courtship and marriage Berenger says, “Oh dear! In the space of a few minutes we’ve gone through twenty-five years of married life.”4 This notion of an abridged marital experience inspired new opportunities for blocking and character motivation. While Daisy and Berenger still spoke philosophically, their section had the added impetus of exploring the seasons of a romance, as suggested by the text. Thus, we used the script analysis to practice the distinct stages of their relationship, as previously mentioned. One of the particular challenges the actors faced was learning to motivate their delivery in less physically active scenes.

Truthful Acting, Not Absurd

As blocking rehearsals wrapped up and portions of the show were connected for run-throughs, a new problem emerged; some of the actors were more adept with stylized line delivery than others. As the repetitive, circular dialogue is most pronounced in the first two scenes, actors whose characters only appeared in these had an easier time motivating their choices within the rhythmic delivery style than actors whose characters reappeared later in the play. For example, the actors playing Jean and Dudard motivated their character choices across the scenes with a progression connecting to their ultimate choices to transform into rhinoceroses later in the play. This was wise and thoughtful but

4 Eugene Ionesco, Rhinoceros and Other Plays, trans. Derek Prouse (New York: Grove Press, 1960), 104. 123 posed a problem concerning their cues and line delivery. The actors were sometimes so concerned with their particular character’s journey that they disengaged from the group of characters propelling the present scene forward. Although the plotted scenario of human characters turning into rhinos is inherently absurd, the lines the characters speak read as very heady, philosophical, and serious. The balance of the scenes tipped toward an earnest type of delivery for a few of the performers that fought against the livelier, more comedic performances of the rest of the cast. Furthermore, the actor who played

Berenger initially had a difficult time connecting his character’s motivations and delivery across the play, as he is the only character that appears in every scene. The repetitive, interrupting, and seemingly nonsensical type of dialogue used by the group in Act One seemed too much of a contrast to the headiness of the dialogue in Act Three, such that the actor initially had trouble making Berenger seem like the same character in both acts.

The actor playing Berenger was just one of several who initially struggled matching their delivery to the rest of the cast because of drastic differences in emotional tone between each scene. For example, the actor playing Jean was doing remarkably nuanced work in the first scene, but he could not be understood compared to some of the other actors. When Berenger and Jean had their conversation about culture that occurred simultaneously with the Old Gentleman and the Logician’s discussion of syllogisms, the first pair’s lines were getting lost. I assumed it was a simple matter of improving diction and projection, but the actors expressed challenges motivating the enhancements to their delivery as they were directed. They were delivering their lines with an understated approach based on their knowledge of the characters’ journeys, but they stood out as disengaged from the group. Knowing their characters would express greater emotional

124 depths later in the play that most of the other characters would not, initially inhibited

them; they could not coalesce with the comedic timing of the group. They also feared

appearing pedantic and stood out for being too reserved.

It was surprising and beneficial to realize that they were equating their style of line delivery with what they considered to be honest acting. The actor playing Jean explained that he found it very difficult to play his tactics toward Berenger and focus on exaggerating his diction at the same time. I encouraged him not to think of the diction and delivery notes as an additional task to accomplish on top of his acting tactics; the notes were not meant to be an additional goal to juggle. Instead, he was encouraged to use the exaggerated consonants as a vehicle through which he could play his tactics toward Berenger. Viewing stylization and delivery as vehicles through which to perform well-motivated character choices, rather than creative “filters” pasted on top of performances, helped the actors motivate their choices, assimilate with the tone of the scene, and be understood by the audience. These conversations inspired additional table work and acting exercises to help clarify the desired tone of each scene; with newly shared experiences and terminology, the actors were then able to perform in a more cohesive way together. These ideas will be discussed further in a later section about a session we called “Rhino School.”

A Note on Memorization

In addition to challenges of character through lines and emotional tone, the rehearsal process suffered in early weeks because of problems with memorization. While some actors met off-book deadlines promptly, others struggled with elements of the play’s literary style, such as its repetition, seemingly nonsensical ordering of lines, and

125 staccato rhythm. Still others neglected to follow through on memorization altogether.

Certainly, actors take personal approaches to memorizing their lines, and it is unwise to

assume that they struggled with cues for the same reasons. Regardless, trying to rehearse

such complex ensemble scenes with scripts in hand significantly hampered the rehearsal process and wasted valuable time. Some actors’ lack of progress made my mentor and I wonder if some were simply neglecting their responsibilities, while other actors seemed legitimately stymied by a play with repetitive dialogue and seemingly arbitrary cue lines.

We recognized that some actors had put in plenty of work, but their memorization habits and techniques were not suited for the active listening the play required. Some were used to relying on a predictable narrative structure to jog their memory, but the script does not follow such devices. A few others had surprisingly learned to mechanically count lines between their cue lines in past productions, rather than learn the full flow of the scene.

This is not an effective strategy in a realistic play, and it particularly does not work in a play with so many interjecting lines from an unpredictable ensemble. Needless to say, these were problems that my mentor and I separately tried to address. It was encouraging to note how some actors proactively encouraged fellow cast members to study with them outside of rehearsal, and some key performers took the lead in getting their peers up to speed. Aside from the disappointment of a few actors’ lack of preparation, it was beneficial to learn that certain aspects of the script’s literary style made memorization more challenging for some of the actors. This information helped the director prepare additional table work discussions and actor exercises to overcome the memorization challenges.

126 The Designer Run

Nearly two weeks into the rehearsal process, albeit with a few interruptions due to campus holidays, the cast presented the first full run-through for the design team. The goal of this designer run was to demonstrate the planned uses of the space for designers overseeing props, lights, sound, costumes, and scenery. The designers then made suggestions and offered feedback to make the show run smoothly from a technical standpoint. It also offered a time for troubleshooting the use of some of the scenic elements with the designers present. For the actors and director, it served as the first time the show had been performed in succession, which revealed which elements were working and which needed to be revised.

As far as the show’s energy was concerned, the first scene lacked momentum until the Housewife made her second grand entrance with the trampled cat. This meant that the first third of the scene did not yet feel dynamic or energized. Once the ensemble was focused on helping the Housewife deal with her dead cat, the play moved forward.

The key was having a shared purpose. In subsequent rehearsals we worked backwards from this point in the script to refine both group and individual goals for the characters.

This included adding more specific blocking for the characters speaking in the group scenes, as well as incorporating additional stage business when characters were not speaking. The designer run revealed additional scenes with blocking in need of more specificity, namely Jean and Berenger’s side conversations in Act One and moments of tenderness between Daisy and Berenger in Act Three. Aside from exposing the strengths and weaknesses of the show’s overall dynamics and flow in its current form, the designer run revealed key questions and issues for each of the design areas.

127 First, the costume designer and wardrobe manager initiated further conversations

to develop the detailed plan for Jean’s onstage transformation. The design meetings had prepared the team for the task, and the blocking details gave them helpful guideposts for

executing their plan. It was decided that Jean’s transformation would take place in the

following five stages: gloves, pants, shirt/scarf, half-mask, and whole-mask. With the five

stages lined out, the costumers adjusted the costumes to better enable the desired

progression of adding the costume pieces. The team also decided that two costume crew

members would assist in the change; one would be positioned offstage in what appeared

to be Jean’s kitchen to assist with his gloves, and the other would be hidden in the

bathroom portion of the set onstage for the remaining elements, as originally planned.

The stage manager also assigned a scenic crew member to bang pots and pans together in

the offstage kitchen area to support the costume change with live sound effects, as if Jean

were rummaging through his kitchen searching for food. The costume designer also

requested that Daisy remove her jacket in Act Two at a particular point to give her a secondary look for the scene. Finally, the team decided when to schedule a run with rehearsal shoes and made plans for incorporating additional rehearsal costume pieces until dress rehearsals began.

Concerning props, the designer run helped the props department see how the props were being used and determine any adjustments to be made for size. For example,

Berenger’s makeshift map of the city made out of household objects was deemed too small to read clearly from the back of the house. The temporary version of the city was made up of Jenga blocks, plastic cups, and toy soldiers. The prop master later replaced this version with larger pieces, such as puzzle boxes, ice trays, and larger peg figures. It

128 was also determined that the traditional animal cracker boxes would be too small; the

prop master decided to create a new box nearly four times larger so that the visual jokes involving the box made sense in the large space. The designer run also helped the team determine when and where to use a fog canister for Berenger’s spray disinfectant when he became paranoid about infection. Finally, the team decided to add additional trash items to Berenger’s apartment, like Cup-O-Noodles containers. In addition, the prop mentor took time after the designer run to explain the necessary circumstances for using the breakaway glasses when the Waitress breaks them in Act One. The team decided that a breakaway wine bottle would be unnecessary, even though the script suggests using one for the Housewife. However, the but the breakaway glasses would be used in an isolated corner of the set with a cleanup plan in place that would not interfere with necessary blocking. The Café Proprietor would be in charge of cleaning up the mess between particular beats.

From a lighting standpoint, the designer run proved that most of the planned light plot for the show would serve the blocking well with very few adjustments required. The run also helped the lighting designer and director get the most use out of the footlights by adjusting blocking to ensure that characters who had onstage transformations caught the correct footlights at the proper times for their changes. The lighting designer also clarified plans to add color and texture to very specific locations with the footlights to support the actors and costumers with the rhino transformations. The designer run also confirmed that the designated silhouette locations would work well for the proliferation of rhino imagery that was planned to take over the final scene. The lighting designer and director scheduled a follow-up rehearsal time for the designer to help the director with

129 specific blocking and spacing in the final scene to maximize the effectiveness of casting

shadows of the silhouetted rhinoceros forms.

From a scenic standpoint, the designer run initiated dialogue about how to best

use the balcony and window elements for the dramatic entrances and exits of Mrs. Boeuf

and the Fireman from the office set. The team helped the actors understand how to

interact with the units safely while getting the most dynamic visual use out of them. In subsequent rehearsals, the cast and director experimented with new blocking based on the safety parameters and sightlines outlined by the design team. Perhaps the most important outcome of the designer run was demonstrating the challenging nature of the scenic transitions between scenes. The modular wagons were designed to be rearranged between

scenes to change locations, and they were too large to be moved behind the grand drape.

It was a creative decision by the entire team to conduct the scene changes in view of the

audience. The run crew members would be costumed to look like townsfolk, and certain

actors were blocked in silent scenes on the apron of the stage to pull focus away from the

movement of the upstage platforms. Ideally, the actors’ stage business and crosses would

supplement the rearrangement of the set pieces in a way to add to the visual storytelling

of the show; the modular pieces in motion could suggest a further exploration of the

cityscape, particularly as each scene took the audience down a new street and further

indoors. The design team could now more fully understand the difficulty of executing the

desired scenic transitions with a limited crew and wagons that were larger and heavier

than some had anticipated. Ultimately, everyone would have to wait until tech week to

understand exactly how to execute the transitions, as the run crew would not join the

production until then.

130 The transition sequences also provided a wonderful opportunity for the sound

designers to tell more of the story they had planned. Sound effects and underscoring were

practically important to mask the noise of the moving set pieces, and the sound designers

quickly volunteered their services to support the transitions sonically and improve their

flow. The head sound designer also used the transitions as an opportunity to remind the

audience that something is odd about the world of the play. He selected underscoring that

went against expectations and added an unsettling sense of intrigue to the piece. For

example, the transitional music included minor chords and unpredictable rhythms, which

contrasted the brightly comical atmosphere and pacing of preceding scenes. In total, the

stage business, scenic movements, sound design, and textured lighting shifts turned the

transitions into interesting scenes that prompted the audience to guess what might happen

next. The sound design did the most to shape the transitions into movements that piqued the audience interest and propelled the play forward. The second major sound development to come out of the designer run was the addition of radio music cues to the final scene between Daisy and Berenger; the couple would now dance away some of their confusion in the final pages. Finally, the run was useful for setting specific cues for sound effects supporting Jean’s transformation and clarifying stage locations for directional sound cues, such as the movements of the rhino herd.

Inviting Guests Early

One of the benefits of studying and working in the Baylor University Theatre community is the opportunity to learn from experienced mentors and professionals. As a regular component of the graduate studies program, directing students invite and receive feedback from faculty members on each of their directing projects, and the thesis

131 production is no exception. The directing mentor for Rhinoceros proposed inviting all

directing and performance faculty to a rehearsal run-through the day after the designer

run. He strongly advocated for inviting guest respondents early in the process so that their

notes could be considered and addressed with plenty of developmental time left in

rehearsals. In his past experience, guest respondents were sometimes invited too late in

the process to reasonably apply valuable notes; thus, the second full run-through was for

invited faculty guests. The respondents for the run included the department chair, the thesis writing mentor, the directing mentor, and two vocal performance professors.

Additional faculty members showed great interest in participating but were unable to attend due to rehearsing separate projects at the same time. Several of them, including

four other performance professors, attended subsequent rehearsals to offer support and

input. Members of the graduate student cohort also attended to observe and respond.

Overall, the faculty invitational run offered several exciting suggestions and solutions

that affected the remaining rehearsal process. In truth, each guest provided some type of

response that directly influenced the final production of the show.

One of the most important results of the faculty run, in conjunction with the

designer run, was receiving the license to rearrange furniture and set pieces to enable

further potential for more dynamic blocking. The designer run ended with some

suggestions for redistributing the café tables in the first scene to delineate additional

acting spaces more clearly, and feedback from the faculty built on this concept by

encouraging additional adjustments to the set pieces that specifically added dimension to

the first scene. The dual conversations between Berenger and Jean and the Logician and

Old Gentleman particularly benefited from the adjustments, which allowed the audience

132 to more clearly bounce between their overlapping conversations as their emphases

shifted. Similarly in Act Three, faculty respondents suggested moving the tall wagon

upstage and trimming the furniture of Berenger’s apartment further inward at a sharper

angle. This still gave the apartment the small footprint suggested by the design concept,

but it also added depth. Now, instead of pacing back and forth along the edge of the

apron in a small, flat apartment, Berenger could nervously circle an equally small apartment while adding a sense of depth and reinforcing the storytelling by circuiting a well-worn path. The directing mentor remarked how this adjustment helped reinforce the circular motion desired by the directing concept in the first place, as it mirrored the

swirling movements of the funnel slide image. The thoughtful feedback from the

designers and faculty encouraged me to take more creative license with the use of the set

and to actively suggest adjustments that could benefit the storytelling. The scenic

designer welcomed the dialogue and gave permission for changing the positioning of set

pieces to most fully serve the story.

The second important takeaway from the faculty run also involved creative

license; this time I felt freed to add more stage business for the townsfolk in the first

scene. I was conservative with this at first because of feedback from a previous project, in

which the stage business designed to flesh out the world of the play sometimes pulled

focus from the lines being spoken. With the mentors asking for more, the actors and I

infused the city scene with more life for characters who were not speaking. In rehearsals

following this run, we added new stage business scenarios, reorganized the timing of

some business that was already planned, and developed additional relationship details

between the townspeople. The world of the play, and the first scene in particular, grew

133 richer from that point on, and I learned better through trial and error which bits of

business added to the story and which took away from it.

Another valuable point of feedback involved more fully and creatively supporting the play’s inherent suspense. It was easy to forget the surprise nature of the play’s ending after much study and rehearsal, and one of the respondents reminded me of the joy the audience could take in guessing which characters would transform into rhinos and which would remain human. This began a delightful exploration of the nature of rhinoceritis and its tell-tale symptoms. This discussion influenced some of the vocal and physical development work that guided several following rehearsals. It opened doors to playful applications of pre-transformation rhinoceros traits that could keep the audience guessing

and offered solutions both grand and small. For example, the symptoms of rhinoceritis

were diversified to include changes in breathing, delivery, posture, laughter, and gesture.

Evidence of common ailments such as headaches and colds took on new meanings. A

pre-transformation Dudard even ate leaves from a bouquet of flowers while no one was

looking before proclaiming that he preferred to eat his lunch on the grass.

The faculty run also cemented a change in how the show would run in

performance. While the original production included two intermissions, the Baylor team

wanted to include only one. For a balance of time, the act break was initially planned for

after the office scene, so that each act would feature only two scenes in two locations.

Jean’s transformation scene played really well for the faculty run and was the only scene

that felt properly paced by that point in the rehearsal process. This was the third scene

overall and certainly made for a more exciting act break, with Berenger being chased

offstage by a herd of rhinos. Thankfully, the cast had significantly picked up their cues in

134 the first scene, probably inspired by the thought of performing for their professors. This

showed potential for further tightening, which meant Act One could play faster than originally anticipated. Thus, the decision was made to push the act break to after Jean’s transformation in Act Two, Scene Two. So, the second act of the Baylor production would begin with the section that the script labels as Act Three. This brought new challenges of staging two large-scale transitions in the first half, which was different than what the designers experienced at their run the night before. However, the team was committed to seizing this opportunity, and in the end, it would prove to be the wisest course of action for adequately setting up the final scene, both in terms of logistics for the run crew and in storytelling momentum for the audience.

One of the invited guests was new to the story of Rhinoceros, having never seen

or read the play. This professor’s feedback was particularly helpful as her experience best

approximated how audiences might receive the piece. It was encouraging to hear which

portions of the plot were clear and which comic moments were working, but it was even

more important to understand which plot elements were lost or confusing due to

problems with delivery. In its form at the time, the play did not clearly communicate that

Mrs. Boeuf’s husband had turned into a rhinoceros early enough. The blocking needed

some refocusing to help audiences understand that the characters were watching the rhino

version of Mr. Boeuf outside the window. More importantly, the actors needed to

enunciate and clarify their vocal delivery of key lines so that major plot points were not

lost. In fact, a good portion of the faculty feedback concerned the overall vocal

production, health, and sustainability of the performers. Some of the faculty responses are

135 detailed further in the following section as part of a larger discussion of the overall vocal

development of the show.

Vocal Development and Listening

It was clear from the beginning that a production of Rhinoceros would involve some very specific vocal requirements from the cast. Over the course of rehearsals we found the need to identify and perfect sustainable vocal performance strategies that would enable the actors to tell the story for an eight-show run. The script describes rhinoceroses as breathing heavily, speaking hoarsely, and making trumpeting sounds. In Jean’s transformation scene, the script denotes his trumpeting with the onomatopoeia, “Brrrrrr.”5

In the office scene, Mr. Botard often scoffs with the accompanying sound, “Pffff!” 6 In this production, the actor playing Mr. Botard received direction to deliver the signature scoffing sound as an audible precursor to the “Brrrrr” sound that Jean makes later in the show; this was appropriate because both men ultimately turn into rhinos. These ideas diverged into two important modes of development for the show -- the audible evidence of rhinoceritis and its precursory symptoms, and the vocal choices actors could healthily sustain for their onstage transformations.

One of the vocal performance professors specializes in vocology and vocal performance and volunteered to review vocal choices with the director and the actor who played Jean, early in the rehearsal process. The actor expressed concerns about vocal health and sustainability for his original interpretations of the rhinoceros transformation scene, and the professor volunteered to help troubleshoot. The actor’s original sound

5 Ionesco, Rhinoceros and Other Plays, 64.

6 Ibid., 39. 136 choices were more glottal and guttural; he seemed to swallow words, rather than project them forward. He also affected a hoarse quality that involved a lot of vocal strain. The actor’s interpretation was dynamic, exciting, and uniquely character-driven, but the production of sound was more suited for recording a nuanced voiceover track than for reproducing nightly in a large proscenium space for several weeks. The professor helped the actor use a more nasally resonant and forward placement for his dialogue, and together we identified sounds based in forming fricatives or bubbling lip exercises that could more healthily approximate the “Brrrr” sound without tiring the actor’s voice.

This became a revelatory exploration for the production, as we suddenly began locating fricatives in the lines of all the characters that would eventually become rhinos.

We then experimented with extending and exaggerating the fricatives in different places throughout the lines. The actors playing Jean, Dudard, and Daisy all used exaggerated fricatives for foreshadowing their transformations into rhinos. Then, as their respective transformations took over, Jean, Dudard, and Daisy increased the frequency and intensity of these exaggerated sounds. We also determined that heavy, audible breathing was vocally healthier as a baseline symptom of rhinoceritis, and the actors incorporated this technique in various places. As further development, when the characters became more focused and aimed as a rhino, such as when Jean realizes he enjoys being misanthropic before charging Berenger7 or when Daisy exits the apartment,8 the actors made their corresponding speech to sound exaggeratedly precise; this heightened articulation was to sound like more calculated villainy.

7 Ionesco, Rhinoceros and Other Plays, 64-69.

8 Ibid., 105. 137

Following these decisions, the director invited actors to incorporate vocal precursors to their rhino changes earlier in the show, and there were already a few key hints at future transformations sprinkled throughout Act One. It also became clear that the cast would need to develop more focused listening skills as a whole. In the first scene, ten actors talk over one another for an extended period of time, and it was initially very difficult for the actors to hear and respond to their cues appropriately. Some actors were not used to listening so actively for cues coming from a large number of cast members, and others had to overcome ineffective habits for learning their lines. They soon discovered they would need to memorize much more than just their individual cue lines for the large opening scene to make sense. Identifying operative words for the entire ensemble helped them make sense of the scene when it came to directing focus, as did more specific blocking choices. However, the scene was still meant to clip along with musicality in its pacing, and the focus was intended to bounce around like a pinball between pertinent conversation points interspersed among a very talkative cast of characters. Actors developed their skills of soft focus, which “asks us not to go out

toward what we want, searching for prey, but rather, with soft focus, to reverse our

habitual directional flow and allow information to move in toward us,” according to Anne

Bogart and Tina Landau.9 Rather than focusing only on what each individual character wanted, which had thus far led to many missed cues, the actors learned to take in the entirety of the scene and its evolving sense of community, which greatly helped the scene achieve a desired pace that the audience could follow.

9 Anne Bogart and Tina Landau, The Viewpoints Book: A Practical Guide to Viewpoints and Composition (New York: Theatre Communication Group, 2005), 32. 138

Developing focused listening skills was especially important to help appropriately

balance the volume of individual line delivery among a large cast; the scene would not work if the audience could hear the Old Gentleman and Jean, but not Berenger and the

Logician, for example. The cast would need to listen to each other more intentionally, as

if they were a choir or a musical theatre cast, even though they were not singing. To this

end, one rehearsal consisted of all the actors lying on their backs in the rehearsal space

with pillows and blankets. They were positioned in a circle facing inward with a speaker

placed in the middle playing selected underscoring tracks as full accompaniment for the

rehearsal. They ran the dialogue from this position without incorporating blocking. The

accompaniment tracks were not the final tracks used in the production; instead, they were

tracks with varying tempos and emotional qualities to inspire the desired delivery for

each scene. The actors used this rehearsal to focus on vocal production and listening to

each other over a common underscore. It proved beneficial in several ways. First, the

actors practiced delivering their lines over a temporary underscore, as a final underscore

would be added as the sound design team completed it. Second, it forced them all to

balance their volume, which helped them develop this skill successfully for their run.

Third, they finally began listening and responding to more than just their own cue lines.

In the hustle of trying to keep up with the blocking of the (seemingly) scattered scene on their feet, many of the actors had never truly listened to the comments and jokes that other characters were making. There was more genuine, appreciative laughter and

engagement in that rehearsal than in any prior session. Now, actors seemed to understand

how their particular lines contributed to the wealth and beauty of the piece as a whole.

They listened and discovered how their castmates’ characters also contributed to the

139 whole. No longer frustrated with overlapping lines and hurried blocking, they found the show’s collective sound. This was an invaluable experience that left an indelible mark on the show. The actors understood the overall concept of the show’s desired musical quality, including the “instruments” their individual characters would portray.

Each of the discoveries and developments concerning the aural aspects of the production reinforced the need for developing show-specific warm-ups that would prepare the actors for the vocal needs of their rhino transformations and the soft-focus needs in scenes where characters spoke over one another. The vocal performance professor and students in Baylor’s musical directing class contributed ideas for the warm- ups that the cast used throughout the rehearsal process. These included, vocal trills, hills, and sirens on fricatives for warming up the rhino sounds. Actors repeated lines from the show, beginning with “Oh, a rhinoceros!” with varying pitches and delivery styles to practice the musical variety desired for the scenes in which the ensemble discovers the rhinos. Other exercises, such as puppy whines, toddler cries, and vocal fry creaks encouraged vocal variety. The cast also repeated a game in which an actor connects with a castmate across a circle and delivers a line to them while crossing the circle to take their place. This then prompts the second cast member to deliver a line to another cast member, starting a chain reaction of connection, line delivery, and switching places. The director or actor leading warmups would then prompt another actor to start a simultaneous second round of chain reactions, so all the actors could practice focusing and responding with characters clearly articulating multiple cue lines at the same time.

To improve the overall intelligibility and effectiveness of line delivery, the cast focused on playing tactics through emphasized consonants in operative words through

140 vocal exercises based on the work of Arthur Lessac.10 After attending a run-through as a

guest respondent, one of the graduate directing professors led the cast in a workshop

session using an actor packet of Lessac materials prepared by a graduate student

dramaturg. These exercises became part of cast warmups following the workshop.

Another professor shared corks with the cast to use in vocal warmups designed to sharpen articulation. Actors were tasked with warming themselves up over the run of rehearsals and performances, and the director charged them to incorporate the Lessac exercises into

their personal routines, particularly while the cast was on an extended break from rehearsals due to the campus holiday calendar. The actors applied these techniques both onstage and off, which meant the vocal aspects of the show actually grew in coherence, strength, and specificity over the rehearsal break. Using input from the faculty, the director and cast experimented with a variety of vocal concepts and implemented diverse, tailored exercises and tools that enhanced the overall aural quality of the show.

Rhino School

In addition to recognizing the vocal needs of the cast, one of the most important discoveries from early rehearsals was learning that the actors had very different understandings and experiences of Absurdist drama. The run-throughs especially highlighted this disparity, as the scenes were played in succession for the first time.

While most of the actors understood basic distinctions of Absurdism intellectually, from classes and table work discussions, only a few of the actors had seen a performance of an

Absurdist play. Those who had seen them, however, also reported a wide range of

10 Arthur Lessac, The Use and Training of the Human Voice (Mountain View, California: Mayfield Publishing Company, 1997). 141 responses to the productions, making it clear that there was no true example around

which the cast was united for reference. To help lay a shared foundation, the cast watched

clips of the 2009 Broadway revival of Ionesco’s Exit the King, as well as Extant

Theatre’s 2016 production of The Chairs. They also viewed clips of the 2014 Broadway

revival of Sophie Treadwell’s Machinal.

Although Machinal is more purely an expressionistic play, it has some

commonality with Ionesco’s work, particularly as Rhinoceros employs a more

expressionistic approach in the final act. I also wanted the actors to pay particular

attention to the performance of Michael Cumpsty in the role of Husband in Machinal.

Cumpsty is clearly playing tactics through exaggerated vocals; his delivery is oddly deliberate, repetitive, and broad, while still being well-motivated and perfectly serving the thematic purposes of the play. Watching his performance was particularly helpful for the actor playing Dudard. He had been having trouble adding color or humor to his delivery of the lines in the final scene because he was reading them with straightforward sincerity, without considering that Dudard was struggling to process the rhino invasion, just like Berenger. It helped that the actor playing Dudard had a previous understanding of how the supporting characters in Machinal serve its theme of the protagonist feeling trapped inside her world, having studied the play in class. This helped him make connections to Dudard’s function in the larger plot of Rhinoceros, and he discovered that a more stylized and comic delivery of his serious lines could help him achieve both his character’s goals and the narrative goals of the overall play. By adding laughter, musicality, and repetition to even his philosophical musings, the actor playing Dudard

could better portray the absurdity of a relativist seeking to justify what is unjustifiable.

142 The rehearsal following “Rhino School” brought much growth and creativity to Dudard’s

final scene, in particular.

After viewing and discussing clips, the cast was led through a series of exercises

utilizing some of Anne Bogart and Tina Landau’s Viewpoints principles to physically

explore the playing space. This helped the actors develop a greater sense of ownership

over the space for their characters. The next lesson of Rhino School was to define the

baseline characteristics of rhinoceroses that all the cast could apply to their

transformations. This process involved group devising, physical exercises, and vocal

work. The first goal was to determine a uniform end result for the rhino transformations,

as everyone besides Berenger would eventually become part of the rhino herd. The

second goal was to give the actors rhinoceros traits that they could strategically display as

foreshadowing earlier in the play. Sneezing, coughing, heavy footsteps, disorientation,

and both physical and vocal ticks became signs of the disease. The sequential

transformation of body parts was also determined to keep uniformity as characters

became rhinoceroses. Finally, the actors combined the exercises and ran portions of the opening scenes, as if the characters were already rhinos, instead of humans. This last exercise cemented the developmental ideas in the actors’ minds and helped them discover a unified target for their delivery and transformation. It not only improved the rhino portions of the play, but it helped the cast creatively frame the human portions of the play

in a collective and dynamic manner. Several actors expressed more enthusiasm and less

stress about performing in an Absurdist play after these sessions.

143 Play Time

Following the designer and faculty runs, the rehearsal schedule shifted between run-throughs and working sessions, which culminated in a performance for the run crew before technical rehearsals began. This period felt like play time. With actors off book and creatively supporting each other, the cast made daily discoveries that fleshed out their storytelling. Rhino School, the Lessac workshop, and applying notes from faculty feedback inspired the actors to take more risks and have more fun; instead of a group of

actors concerned with personal performances and anxieties, they were all invested,

contributing citizens of the world of their play. The first act was enriched by new stage

business for the townsfolk in scene one and by further defining the power dynamics of

the office in scene two. However, it was the second act that experienced the greatest

transformation.

The actors playing Daisy, Dudard, and Berenger decided together to turn their

focus from individual insecurities with the challenging material to supporting each other

in taking risks. Freed from perfectionism, the three actors played through a number of

exercises to find new dynamics in their scenes. For example, the three actors played their

shared scene as a horror film, which helped them access additional elements of suspense

and paranoia. Next, they played it as a Lifetime movie of the week, which aided in the

acceleration of the romantic love triangle late in the act. Finally, they all three sang

through their scene as an opera; this helped raise the stakes and encouraged the actors to

let the dialogue and emotional beats flow in places that were previously choppy.

These working rehearsals added new practical elements, such as using a poker game to help Dudard and Berenger emphasize their philosophical points. Daisy accessed

144 new drive to take charge of the situation by cleaning Berenger’s mess and prodding him

to “play house” for comfort. She also found new fascination for the rhinos, prior to her

change, that caused her to dance along with them. The couch that had been ordered for

the set arrived just prior to tech week, and to everyone’s surprise it turned out to be a

futon. This gave new opportunities for sight gags in the second half, where the written

humor was already sparse. For example, when it dawns on Berenger that he and Daisy

could repopulate the earth, he converts the couch back into a bed and sweetly tries to woo

her by lying upon it.

The element that grew the most during this period of exploration was the

chemistry between Daisy and Berenger. The department chair, who is another directing

mentor, challenged me to think of a kookier solution to portraying the love relationship of

the play’s final couple. We had previously tried leaning into tropes of soap operas or

telenovelas, but they did not work with our actors or concept. It was also decided that

Berenger’s scripted slap on Daisy’s cheek would not be received the same in 2019 as it

was in 1959. Today it reads more like abuse and could make it more difficult for some of

the audience members to forgive Berenger at the of the play. To address the concern of

the slap and the challenge for kookiness, we experimented with the actors making sock

puppets out of Berenger’s laundry and speaking to each other in silly voices. I could tell

the actors were skeptical, but they politely attempted the exercise, then let loose.

Suddenly, Berenger’s oddly hyperbolic professions of love took on a sweet sense

of naiveite and hopefulness when spoken in a puppet voice. The puppets allowed the

characters to further abstract their fears and confusing emotions through a safer, stranger form of interaction. We also decided that Daisy would turn on the radio and try to get

145 Berenger to dance with her to distract him from obsessing about the rhinos. When this

doesn’t work, she would then put on the sock for the first time and speak her line in the

puppet voice, “Escape into the world of the imagination.”11 We tried using the sock

puppets in a variety of ways, including having Berenger use his puppet to hit Daisy’s

puppet as a replacement for the scripted slap. This particular solution did not work, but each of the variations were worth trying as part of an exploratory process. The experimentation in rehearsals helped the actors grow more confident and comfortable

taking risks. In the end, the puppets were relegated to a few key exchanges interspersed

across three pages of text, and instead of slapping Daisy, Berenger shook her shoulders to

try to snap her back to reality. When all was said and done, the three actors together

shaved nine minutes off the run time of the second half by motivating their actions,

picking up their cues, and allowing themselves to play.

Cue-to-Cue and Transitions

The first milestone for tech week was completing the cue-to-cue rehearsals. For

Rhinoceros, the team opted to integrate a few more elements than are standard for a cue-

to-cue rehearsal. Due to the show’s specific costuming needs, particularly Jean’s five-

step onstage rhino transformation, costumes were included in the cue-to-cue process from the beginning, instead of being added during the first dress rehearsal. Though it altered the schedule slightly, including the costume changes ultimately saved time because the sound, lights, and scenic cues were all interdependent to some degree with the costume changes. Having all designers and crew members available to troubleshoot during cue-to- cue meant making adjustments to lighting focus, scenic placement, and even sound

11 Ionesco, Rhinoceros and Other Plays, 98. 146 effects to help mask Jean’s dresser hiding behind a partition in the onstage bathroom unit.

The process also integrated lighting cues with specific blocking details into the play’s final sequence. The director and lighting designer collaborated during the cue-to-cue rehearsal to precisely place each rhinoceros for the final scene. Since the lighting design

was so dependent upon precise silhouettes and shadow work, the actors could not

adequately rehearse this scene without the exact lighting cues guiding their movements,

entrances, and exits.

Finally, it was necessary to use a portion of the cue-to-cue period to restage some

of the blocking in the office scene. While blocking changes are rarely made this late in the process, construction of the upstairs portions of the office units had only been

completed the day before. Having three wagon units combine to form a second level

platform with overlooks and handrails contributed to a longer construction period. For the

safety of the cast and crew, the team deemed it was necessary to adjust blocking details

now that the units were finally complete and cleared for use by the cast. Of particular

importance was adjusting the characters’ exits on a roll-away stair unit out a second story

window.

As mentioned in a previous section, the chief scenic challenges identified by the

designer run were the two transitions that involved reconfiguring the wagons in view of

the audience. Now that the crew was assembled and the wagons were completed, the

transitions received their first true test. It was immediately apparent that the crew alone

could not complete the transitions in a timely fashion. To begin with, there were five

members of the run crew and two actors assigned to crew duty. All four wagons needed a

minimum of two people each to steer them safely and precisely into position. Once the

147 wagons were repositioned, they also needed to be dressed with props and furniture, as different scenes required different uses of each wagon. The stage managers and director collaborated with the costume crew to identify actors to assist the run crew with the transitions. As long as actors were free from changing costumes, hair, or makeup at the same time, they were enlisted as extra hands and eyes for the transitions.

Several actors had previously developed wordless interlude scenes with the director to draw focus to the apron of the stage while the wagons transitioned in the upstage areas. These scenes were kept in reserve and interspersed throughout the transition in a sequence that delivered the most actors available to aid the transitions while ensuring that at least one character would pull focus to the front of the stage at any given time. After multiple attempts, the team rallied to troubleshoot the sequences, which resulted in significant rearrangement of the way the backstage elements were preset for the top of the show. The cast and crew devoted one final rehearsal day, which had been set aside for troubleshooting, to rehearsing and refining the transitions. Altogether, the team reduced the time of each transition to a fifth of the original duration.

Growing the Show Over Break

The schedule for Rhinoceros had specific challenges, in that it spanned multiple school holidays, including Fall Break, a Halloween football game, and Thanksgiving

Break. The way the holidays fell this year meant that the show would finish tech week rehearsals, then go on a five-day hiatus. The cast and crew would get one pick-up dress rehearsal the night before the preview performance, which would then be followed by opening night. After seeing the actors struggle with their lines and cues after just one weekend away earlier in the rehearsal process, I made some backup preparations for an

148

extra rehearsal session if the pick-up run-through did not go well. Before leaving for

Thanksgiving break, the actors were encouraged to use their Lessac packets to warm up

vocally and practice emphasizing operative words within their script. They also were

reminded to “take ten” to review their lines in short, ten-minute intervals each day, in

hopes they would keep their cues fresh and precise. The actors took it upon themselves to call one another and keep each other accountable during the break. The entire production team was relieved and proud to see the actors rise to the challenge. When the cast returned, their pick-up rehearsal needed a new name; it was a final dress worthy of a full audience. The show had not run tighter, nor had the relationships been more dynamic.

The cast and crew were ready to open.

Conclusion

The rehearsal process of Rhinoceros saw many challenges become opportunities for growth. The cast learned to listen and create a cohesive type of delivery for the group scenes by motivating the characters’ nonsense, instead of playing it pedantically. They also learned that Absurdism was neither a type of theatre to be feared nor a prescriptive or presentational style that ignored motivated actions. Instead, honest acting is both

possible and necessary to bring the absurd world to life. Together, we learned to take

risks to enhance our storytelling. The cast found that truthful acting can exist outside of the style of realism and that motivating actions in an absurd scenario takes just as much or more commitment to the rules of the world of the play. I learned to develop a common

collaborative language through experiential learning and defining new terms the team

could understand together. I also learned that while more preparation may always be desired, a director must learn to adjust in the moment to the needs of the cast. Some of

149

my preferred techniques worked well with certain performers but were less effective with others, and the process gave me practice at adapting my methods to better suit the needs of the performers on an individual basis. Best of all, I learned to embrace the creative

license offered by my mentors and designers. The following chapter will outline the

results of the rehearsal process; it will detail which elements were best developed by

showtime and which were poised for future growth.

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CHAPTER FIVE

Production Assessment

Introduction

This chapter aims to assess the results of the collaborative work between the

actors, designers, and director that brought Rhinoceros to the Baylor University stage. By

comparing rehearsals to performances, the directorial decisions and processes can be

evaluated in detail. The episodic nature of the play combined with a unique collection of

characters in each scene, meant that some of the rehearsal strategies and intended goals

for each scene were markedly different from each other. With this in mind, it is valuable

to assess the effectiveness of each scene separate from the others, to truly evaluate the

work involved before considering the play as a whole. This scene-by-scene assessment will be followed by an explanation of some general lessons learned about the overall collaborative working relationships with actors and designers alike.

How the Scenes Played

For the opening scene, the main challenges were pacing and directing the focus of the audience both audially and visually. The intent was for the scene to be paced like connected musical movements of a larger symphony. Ideally, visual cues and highlighting specific voices at key times would draw audience focus to desired plot elements and dialogue. Thankfully, feedback affirmed that these goals were frequently met. A few patrons expressed surprise at how they were able to follow the story with so much happening. Faculty guests who attended early runs spoke favorably about following

151

the dialogue and storyline in the group scenes during the performance; the group

dynamics that were initially so challenging in rehearsals became some of the standout

elements of the show. Additional feedback from both patrons and faculty praised the

character choices and comedic sensibilities of the ensemble. Perhaps the greatest

challenge in the first scene was connecting the pacing and energy of the dual

conversations between Jean and Berenger and the Logician and the Old Gentleman.

Thankfully, this section played well and received acclaim throughout the run. In hindsight, I was pleased with how the scene turned out but wonder if it might have played even better if I were more decisive in early rehearsals and if all of the actors had

thoroughly learned their lines by the off-book date. Time could have been better spent

perfecting other scenes.

For example, the office scene played well overall but could have used more

specificity, similar to the scene in the street. The second scene was humorous and

serviceable to help flesh out the world, but it was not a standout sequence. The

relationships between characters were clear, but the office power dynamics were not as

well-defined visually as originally planned. For example, it was clear which characters

fancied Ms. Daisy; Dudard and Berenger each flirted in their own way, while Papillon

made unwanted advances that set up plot points explored later. However, one of the more

exciting elements of the office scene is its potential to satirize the “boy’s club” mentality

common in male-dominated offices of the day; the dialogue suggests that Daisy is more

intelligent and aware of the world than the male leadership at the firm. While, blocking

and delivery choices sometimes referenced these ideas, this theme was not explored or

incorporated to the that degree I had hoped. Part of the lack of specificity in this scene

152 came from the misfortune of restaging portions at the last minute due to the second story

of the set being unavailable for full rehearsals until tech week. In hindsight, I should have

planned better for this delay and constructed a better approximation of the physical units

for rehearsal, if nothing else.

Additionally, the actor playing Botard struggled significantly with memorization

well past the off-book date. With much of the scene built around Botard’s

monopolization of attention and conversation, I envisioned more specific stage pictures

and comic bits dependent on him. As the director, I should have been firmer and more

direct concerning his lack of progress, particularly in early rehearsals. His unique

comedic talents ultimately served the show very well, and his take on the character was

appreciated. Yet, I wonder if we could have achieved more specific comic blocking and stage pictures if he had been better prepared sooner.

Conversely, one element of the office scene that worked better than anticipated was the dramatic exit of Mrs. Boeuf. In rehearsals, Mrs. Boeuf’s exit had been a challenge to stage, due to safety concerns and the apprehension of the actor jumping off the unit. With guidance from my directing mentor, it was decided that Mrs. Boeuf would jump off the balcony ledge on the first floor of the unit at the upstage corner and out of sight, rather than jumping out the second-floor window onto a masked platform. This made the jump more achievable for the actor but also meant the other actors would have to compensate and help the audience understand what was happening when Mrs. Boeuf was out of sight without a more dramatic leap out the window. Everyone involved with this section delivered their lines and nonverbal cues effectively, as the sequence got great laughs each night. This directly addressed the faculty note from the invitational run, as it

153 was now clear Mr. Boeuf had turned into a rhino. This was an instance when the blocking

and line delivery achieved the level of specificity desired throughout the rest of the scene.

Another success was the final iteration of Mr. Papillon. The actor that played Mr.

Papillon made good strides in differentiating his two roles; he also played the Old

Gentleman in the first scene. After experimenting with various portrayals of the character, he finally hit on a comic approach that helped send up corporate culture and bureaucratic minutiae in a way the scene needed. His performance helped further the satire desired for the office scene.

The third scene, Jean’s transformation, changed the least throughout rehearsals and played the most effectively and consistently overall throughout the process. Once the scene was staged, its development mostly involved raising the stakes, adding nuance, and refining the rhino transformation. This scene was particularly well-executed by the actor playing Jean, and feedback from faculty proved that the vocal approach he developed for

the character served him well across the run. The actor playing Berenger also

successfully addressed notes concerning emotional intensity and did a commendable job

connecting his character’s arc through this important turning point. He ended the scene

being chased by the rhino herd with a great blend of urgency and comedy that sent the

audience off to intermission with a new sense of intrigue and excitement. This final

sequence before the act break became one of the high points of the production.

For the purposes of evaluation, the single long scene that comprises the second half will be broken into four segments. The first is the long duet scene between Dudard and Berenger, following Berenger’s nightmare. This scene matured greatly over the course of rehearsals, after being identified at the read-through as the weak point in the

154 show’s momentum. I learned much through working on this scene, and though it grew significantly, it still needed more development by the opening of the show. The cast and I had incorporated many entertaining elements that enhanced the wordy scene. Some of the ideas were useful, but several needed further exploration.

For example, Berenger’s homemade map of the city became a comic expression of his paranoia. When Berenger tracked rhinos with his binoculars, he moved the makeshift rhino model pieces around the map to match their movements outside using a grabber tool/trash picker. This comic bit set up the map as an expression of Berenger’s obsessive paranoia and received laughter each night. Bother Berenger and Dudard used the map in different ways to support their lines throughout each performance, to varying degrees of effect. Other visual ways to support the paranoia involved barricading the door, spraying Dudard with Lysol disinfectant, and Berenger’s insistence on using hand- cleaning wipes, in addition to the elements already mentioned in the script. Several patrons responded that the mess of Berenger’s apartment was both humorous and effective. Highlighting his paranoia effectively helped audiences connect to Berenger’s fears.

The greater challenge was motivating Dudard and Berenger’s long dialogue about the nature of the disease. We developed the stage business of playing poker during a longer and particularly heady exchange, which allowed the actors to “lay down a winning hand” each time their character felt they were winning the argument. Dudard also helped

Berenger get dressed, in hopes of prompting his friend to finally get out of the house. We also developed visual jokes with animal crackers, newspapers, and the futon, some of which worked better than others. Ultimately, the scene’s success depended on the actors

155 driving the action. Some nights it played exceptionally well, while others lagged a bit. In performance, the scene never stalled the overall pace to the degree that I had feared, but it never became the strong driver of momentum that it could have.

This duet scene’s development particularly suffered from delayed memorization.

It needed more “play time” than was available because of actor hesitation, unfamiliarity with lines, and indecisiveness on the part of the director. To the actors’ credit, however, faculty members remarked that it was some of the best work they’d seen from either actor, and they were pleased pedagogically at their progress. Some of the blocking and stage business choices were useful for energizing the scene, but some felt underdeveloped. It is possible that incorporating fewer staging ideas and comic bits but developing them to greater depths may have added focus and drive to the scene by emphasizing quality over quantity concerning stage business.

One of my mentors expressed concern that some of the bits of business may not have gone far enough; he would have liked to see more drastic decisions from Dudard. I agree with his appraisal that it felt like the sequence was three-fourths of the way to completion but fell short. For example, the actor playing Dudard used laughter as a cover for his character’s insecurity throughout the scene, and it was decided that this laughter would be the trait through which he would turn into a rhino. In a few late rehearsals, the actor skillfully explored the escalation of this trait to effects that bordered on tropes from a horror film; the approach was exciting and certainly moved the scene forward. In performance, however, the idea never quite translated to the same degree. In hindsight, I am thankful for the work of the actors and am particularly proud of their progress overall, but I wish I had cracked the code of the scene, so to speak, with them sooner.

156 Finally, I envisioned the duet scene at the top of the act to draw on idioms from a

midcentury sitcom, with Dudard’s visit playing like a classic stock neighbor character

calling on the protagonist in a time of crisis but missing the point. My directing mentor

supported this concept and advised the lighting designer to increase the lighting intensity

at the beginning of the scene to help give the audience permission to laugh. While the

scene did inspire some laughter, it felt like it was missing at least one more absurdly

comedic element. Weeks after the play closed, I had an idea of Dudard playing miniature

golf with the trash in Berenger’s apartment; Dudard could have been completely unfazed

by Berenger’s paranoid proclamations and laser-focused on his putting skills, instead.

There are innumerable creative decisions that can shape a scene into something special,

and reflection on this sequence will be a source for future growth. By opening night, our

Act Two opened with an amusing sequence that gained much momentum and dynamism

without fully realizing its potential. Overall, the actors delivered strong performances.

The second movement of the final act begins with Daisy’s entrance and concludes

with Dudard’s transformation and exit. This movement successfully raised the dramatic

stakes and moved the plot forward by emphasizing the love triangle and by showing three

people coping with change in different ways. Patrons and faculty alike praised the

performance of the actor playing Dudard for his portrayal of the rhino transformation.

Feedback included positive discussion of how this transformation moved faster than

Jean’s, which implied thematic differences for each character’s change; if humans transform at different rates, then choices to conform are personal, varied, and powerful. It was rewarding to hear that the emphases on personal choices came through clearly for the audience. I was particularly proud of how the actor playing Daisy developed a more

157 decisive mode of operation in this scene. Her tactics were clear, as well as her ability to distinguish between her feelings for Dudard and Berenger.

Daisy’s decisiveness moves the play quickly from the second movement to the third, as she and Berenger are left alone. Similar to the duet scene with Dudard, the scene between Berenger and Daisy received a lot of developmental time in rehearsals. The

actors were well-prepared and proved adept at trying new approaches to the material, as

we struggled to hit the right tone leading into the final part of the play. The actors needed

permission to fully invest in this sequence and confidence that their work was valid; they

made much progress as they turned their attention to supporting each other and received

positive affirmation from the director and directing mentor. This was another scene that

worked very well but did not quite reach its full potential with the time and attention it was given. Both of the actors, however, did some of their best work and stood out to patrons and faculty alike. It was a successful and suspenseful sequence that effectively set up Berenger’s final monologue, which was arguably the strongest sequence of the play.

Berenger’s final monologue uniformly received the highest marks from both faculty and spectators. Faculty commonly responded with joy and surprise that the actor playing Berenger had learned to access such power and control. He successfully connected Berenger’s arc across the entire show, making him a powerful, unlikely, and deeply affecting hero. Contrasting his humanity with the “otherness” of the rhinos was one of the play’s triumphs. Audience members were moved by the piece and enjoyed experiencing a range of emotions to finish out the play. Initially, the actors were hesitant to implement some of the directions for blocking and stage business during the long, philosophical portions of dialogue. However, once they chose to trust the process and

158 motivate their actions, they infused the act with fresh momentum. All three actors in the second act successfully motivated their lines and picked up their cues with confidence; they collectively trimmed nine minutes off the total runtime between dress rehearsals and final performances. They carried the play to an effective and rewarding conclusion.

The impact of the final sequence owes particular thanks to the outstanding work of the designers. The lighting designer’s choices of texture, angle, color, and shadow made the scene truly harrowing and memorable. The design of the rhino costume, and the mask in particular, was disturbing, inhuman, and utilized a bold silhouette, which enhanced the lighting choices. Extending the rhinoceros shadows into the house with large shadows on the wall was chilling, and audiences squirmed in fear to see actors in their full grotesque rhinoceros costumes positioned throughout the house. The contrast of seeing Berenger’s uninhibited fighting gestures and bare torso against the unflinching stillness of the layered, covered mob of rhinos lit from all angles was a striking sight. The sound designer’s final sting of sound effects and jazz music punctuated this haunting scene, leaving the audience with a sense of hope and pride in Berenger’s fight The journey from broad to deep was complete.

Actor-Director Collaboration

Overall, this production of Rhinoceros yielded several important lessons for my further development as a director. Based on prior acting experience, I often direct with a consideration for the actor’s approach. Recommending actor homework, inviting input, and inquiring about characters’ subtext and motivations created an environment that showed respect for the actors’ individual processes and set a collaborative, dialogical tone for rehearsals. In many cases this approach was successful, as in early rehearsals

159 when the actor playing Berenger consistently asked what emotional responses I expected from his line readings. I saw multiple options in several of the lines and encouraged the actor to explore, then choose actions that suited his character arc; the resulting emotions that arose would then serve the story. Instead of micro-managing each moment, I invited the actor to explore and decide. The actor expressed thanks for not dictating his line readings early on, and though fearful at first, he felt new freedom to explore the material.

Similarly, there was much effort put into helping the actor playing Dudard have fun onstage. In his attempts to present a professional and well-received performance, he became preoccupied with being right. He initially struggled to make decisions because he was too concerned with guessing the choices the director wanted him to make; his perfectionism impeded any experimentation. Through affirmation, vision-casting regarding the thematic goals of the play, and tailored actor exercises, he came to approach the work with more freedom.

By contrast, some of the other actors took to guided exploration from the start.

For example, the actor who played the Logician experimented with multiple takes on the character through suggested actor homework, and each version of the character was quite different. The final characterization was the result of collaborative trial-and-error that both suited the story and respected the actor’s process. When building their characters, the actors playing Jean and the Café Proprietor initially focused on portraying a few key characteristics that were supported by the text but were accidentally limiting to their delivery and slightly off-putting to the audience. These actors were encouraged to focus more on their desires and actions, which better framed the character traits as possibilities, instead of limitations; new nuanced characterizations followed.

160 This emphasis on collaborative exploration had served me well in devised work, but I found the process needed a firmer cut-off date at times, and some actors needed a different approach altogether. For example, the actors playing Mr. Botard and Mr.

Papillon flourished with more direction and less exploration. The actor playing Papillon excels in improvisation and consistently brought new interpretations; he needed a decisive eye to help him edit his choices. The actor playing Botard had no trouble taking

risks for delightful comic delivery, but he needed more directorial grounding and focus.

In hindsight, the scenes lacking specificity needed more decisive direction sooner. My

directing mentor encouraged me to be firmer with the actors if I wasn’t seeing results that

matched my concept soon enough. The process taught me that collaboration is not killed

by decisiveness, it is merely given additional boundaries that ultimately help the show to

flourish. A quicker end to the exploratory period, aided by faster follow-through in

memorization goals, would have resulted in a tighter show.

This production also helped me experience the difference between using a directing style emphasizing pedagogy and one that emphasizes professionalism. With my background in education, I began with more of a pedagogical approach because it aligned with my goals of collaboration. However, my mentor helped me identify distinctions and limitations of working too long in such a mode. Primarily, the clock would not allow for every type of exploration; this was a focused five-week process for one play, not a semester devoted to student development. It was important to develop the play first, and while any project certainly has the potential to offer personal growth for the artists involved, the foremost goal is to develop the production, not the people. Ultimately, working on Rhinoceros helped me refine goals for balancing collaborative creation and

161 decisive direction, while steering my own process toward a more professional approach.

All in all, it was a joyous process because of the supportive, enthusiastic, and creative collaboration with the actors.

Designer-Director Collaboration

The project also benefitted from a strong sense of collaboration among the design team. Each of the designers approached the project with creative enthusiasm and professional courtesy. The designers were not only good at their respective trades, but they were kind and cooperative collaborators who sought the best for the team and the production. As detailed in previous chapters, the designers made themselves available for achieving key developmental goals in pre-production, construction/rehearsal time, and performances. For example, the sound and lighting designers met with the stage manager

and I after opening night to tweak the cues for the curtain call. Faculty feedback

suggested some minor changes to help the audience better understand it was time to

applaud, and the designers were enthusiastic to take extra time for these adjustments because they were all personally invested in the show’s success. I was very fortunate to

work with such kind and creative professionals, and together we presented a compelling

show with successful, dynamic designs.

The only design element that was not fully realized was the breakaway staircase

in the second scene. The technical director and scenic designer expressed dissatisfaction

with the product in its final stages and added additional elements to the design throughout

tech week, which included an additional breakaway panel to enhance the effect.

Unfortunately, though, the results were inconsistent. The new additions certainly

strengthened the effect overall, but they worked to only varying degrees in each

162 performance. The staircase needed additional time for trial and adjustment, and that time ran out. An area for growth that I will take into future productions will be to ask questions sooner and seek more specific answers from the design team as needed. Rather than leaving the designers alone to problem-solve on paper, I could have been more proactive in seeking a solution sooner. The staircase became a problem we trusted would get solved in process, and I could have prompted a quicker solution while still maintaining a professional and personable relationship with the designers.

Conclusion

The process of researching and rehearsing Rhinoceros through to production offered invaluable learning experiences for my development as a director. As a graduate directing student and a teacher of record for non-theatre majors, I received a great deal of feedback from inside and outside the theatre department. Patrons brought up issues of politics but were quick to note that the play did not direct them to support any particular point of view. One couple shared how the show made them reevaluate their personal religious convictions and consider how they might respond if no one shared their beliefs.

One alumnus remarked how it made him consider issues of racism and acceptance of others. A relative of the production manager remarked how clearly applicable the play was to contemporary American issues, and several people asked if the play had been revised at all for the Baylor production because it seemed so relevant to today. Hearing people enthusiastically discuss the play’s relevance is one of the most rewarding parts of the experience because everyone involved felt compelled to share this particular fable with the Baylor community. The play serves as a challenge to think for yourself and be gracious to those who are different than you. It is a warning about abdicating your

163 responsibility of discernment to a group, no matter how righteous the group may seem.

To support Berenger’s stand in his convictions is to support human dignity and the value of the individual above any oppressive group or system, and to do anything less would be absurd.

164 APPENDIX

165 APPENDIX

Select Production Photos

The following photographs were taken over three live performances and one special photo session. They are presented in sequence to illustrate the narrowing design features described in Chapter Three.

Figure A.1 Jean and Berenger see a rhinoceros in the distance. Act One begins with colorful costumes and bright lights.

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Figure A.2 “Oh, a rhinoceros!”

Figure A.3 The Logician and the Old Gentleman feel the rumblings of a rhino.

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Figure A.4 Costumes in Act One featured a broad range of colors and prints.

Figure A.5 Jean makes a speech, in an example of how blocking demonstrates the formation of group ideals.

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Figure A.6 Berenger was often blocked to break away from the group.

Figure A.7 The office décor featured warmer tones and multiple levels. Berenger stands on the balcony, which will later be used for Mrs. Boeuf’s exit.

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Figure A.8 Botard and Papillon disregard Daisy’s eyewitness account of the rhinoceros.

Figure A.9 Mrs. Boeuf enters on the top floor near Mr. Papillon’s private office.

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Figure A.10 A portion of the staircase collapses in a cloud of dust as a rhino runs into it.

Figure A.11 Mrs. Boeuf recognizes the trumpeting call of her husband.

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Figure A.12 The Fireman enters from the upstairs window with a standard gas mask around his neck; this is the first time the image is used.

Figure A.13 Costumed crew members rearrange set pieces as Berenger greets Daisy.

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Figure A.14 Transition segments featured dramatic lighting shifts to usher in new scenes.

Figure A.15 The elderly couple greet Berenger on his way to Jean’s apartment.

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Figure A.16 Berenger recognizes the first sign of Jean’s rhinoceritis; a bump.

Figure A.17 Jean enters his offstage kitchen to complete the first phase of his costume change into a rhinoceros. 174

Figure A.18 Coughing and sweating, Jean reveals part of his rhinoceros skin.

Figure A.19 Jean’s costume change involved adding layers of padding in phases, as if his muscles were expanding in grotesque surges across his body. 175

Figure A.20 Jean changes inside the bathroom, while Berenger obliviously continues their conversation. Jean emerges with a partial rhinoceros mask in place.

Figure A.21 Fully transformed rhinoceroses emerge as parts of a herd.

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Figure A.22 A herd of rhinoceroses and their accompanying shadows surround Berenger and chase him offstage in the final scene before intermission.

Figure A.23 Dudard and Berenger wear the muted colors selected for the second act.

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Figure A.24 Berenger gets sick after eating animal crackers from the specially made box.

Figure A.25 The final three human characters form a love triangle in Act Three.

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Figure A.26 As Act Three progresses, the footlights rise, and the background darkens. Dudard eats the leaves off the flower arrangement as an early sign of rhinoceritis.

Figure A.27 Berenger and Daisy distract each other, speaking through sock puppets.

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Figure A.28 The footlights increase intensity as the final couple cling to each other.

Figure A.29 Now alone, Berenger compares his face to those in photographs, as silent rhinoceroses gather outside, and the lights evoke more of an expressionistic style.

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Figure A.30 Berenger delivers his final monologue against a backdrop of rhinoceroses.

Figure A.31 A rhino shadow centerstage looms over Berenger as he makes his final plea.

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Figure A.32 A scrim obscures the rhino herd as they are gradually lit from both sides.

Figure A.33 For his final lines, Berenger stands center with rhinos also standing in the house. Actors dressed as rhinos also cast shadows from second floor portals.

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Figure A.34 “I’m not capitulating!” This view captures each of the visual elements of the final moment, with rhinos on stage and in the house as Berenger makes his stand.

Figure A.35 Actors remove their rhino masks in groups at the curtain call as a sign of hope for rhinos regaining their humanity and a reminder that all rhinos were once people.

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