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Went and saw Rhinoceros last night at convergence. For those of you unfamiliar with this play, you can read about it on Wikipedia. What is of most interest is the background experiences of Ionesco as he grew and became a man, specifically, his Jewish ethnicity, an ethnicity which the Radical Right in Romania would begin to attack in 1930s under the guise of “illegal immigration” and “fraudulent citizenship.” These themes and ideas should be familiar, as, today, it is clear that they come from a very old playbook.

Convergence puts up a timely play, to be sure. What is an ostensibly sensible, refined, and cultured town (country? USA?) supposed to do when a rhinoceros appears and begins smashing things, killing a poor kitten, and destroying everything in his path? What, further, should said town do when its own sensible and refined citizens begin turning into rhinoceroses? They all begin to fit in, play along, and do what everyone else is doing. But events take a more ominous tone as the entire town begins to change. The arguments should sound familiar:

BOTARD: I never believe journalists. They’re all liars. I don’t need them to tell me what to think; I believe what I see with my own eyes. Speaking as a former teacher, I like things to be precise, scientifically valid; I’ve got a methodical mind.

BOTARD: Please forgive me, Mr. Papillon. But you can’t deny that the colour problem is one of the great stumbling blocks of our time.
DUDARD: I know that, we all know that, but it has nothing to do with …
BOTARD: It’s not an issue to be dismissed lightly, Mr. Dudard. The course of history has shown that racial prejudice …

BERENGER: You shouldn’t reject medical advice.
JEAN: Doctors invent illnesses that don’t exist.
BERENGER: They do it in good faith-just for the pleasure of looking after people.
JEAN: They invent illnesses, they invent them, I tell you.
BERENGER: Perhaps they do-but after they invent them they cure them.
JEAN: I only have confidence in veterinary surgeons.

Throughout, Ionesco uses syllogisms from a few side characters to expose the absurd logic that comes into play when people attempt to discuss what they believe and why. The insertion of these sections creates a meta-dialog with the audience as it can begin to see the nature of the conversations regarding sensible people transforming into rhinoceroses:

LOGICIAN: [to the OLD GENTLEMAN] 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.
OLD GENTLEMAN: [to the LOGICIAN] My dog has got four paws.
LOGICIAN: [to the OLD GENTLEMAN] Then it’s a cat.

These absurd arguments become all-too-real as Berenger begins to see his own friends and co-workers transform into Rhinos.

JEAN: I tell you it’s not as bad as all that. After all, rhinoceroses are living creatures the same as us; they’ve got as much right to life as we have !
BERENGER: As long as they don’t destroy ours in the process. You must admit the difference in mentality.
JEAN: [pacing up and down the room, and in and out of the bathroom] Are you under the impression that our way of life is superior?
BERENGER: Well at any rate, we have our own moral standards which I consider incompatible with the standards of these animals.
JEAN: Moral standards! I’m sick of moral standards ! We need to go beyond moral standards !
BERENGER: What would you put in their place?
JEAN: [still pacing] Nature!
BERENGER: Nature?
JEAN: Nature has its own laws. Morality’s against Nature.
BERENGER: Are you suggesting we replace our moral laws by the law of the jungle?
JEAN: It would suit me, suit me fine.

One only need recall Charlottesville and the “fine young men” and their torches to see that greater numbers appear to be turning into rhinoceroses right in front of our eyes. Morality begins to unwind and transform to the Hobbesian “bellum omnium contra omnes”.

And soon, we see people begin to change what they believe, through the simple constant exposure to the ideas, accommodating things that were abhorrent:

DUDARD: What if you do? You only have to keep out of their way. And there aren’t as many as all that.
BERENGER: I see them all over the place. You’ll probably say that’s being morbid, too.
DUDARD: They don’t attack you. If you leave them alone, they just ignore you. You can’t say they’re spiteful. They’ve even got a certain natural innocence, a sort of frankness. Besides I walked right along the avenue to get to you today. I got here safe and sound, didn’t I? No trouble at all.
BERENGER: Just the sight of them upsets me. It’s a nervous thing. I don’t get angry–no, it doesn’t pay to get angry, you never know where it’ll lead to, I watch out for that. But it does something to me, here! [He points to his heart.] I get a tight feeling inside.
DUDARD: I think you’re right to a certain extent to have some reaction. But you go too far. You’ve no sense of humour, that’s your trouble, none at all. You must learn to be more detached, and try and see the funny side of things.
BERENGER: I feel responsible for everything that happens. I feel involved, I just can’t be indifferent.
DUDARD: Judge not lest ye he judged. If you start worrying about everything that happens you’d never be able to go on living.
BERENGER: If only it had happened somewhere else, in some other country, and we’d just read about it in the papers, one could discuss it quietly, examine the question from all points of view and come to an objective conclusion. We could organize debates with professors and writers and lawyers, and blue-stockings and artists and people. And the ordinary man in the street, as well-it would be very interesting and instructive. But when you’ re involved yourself, when you suddenly find yourself up against the brutal facts you can’t help feeling directly concerned-the shock is too violent for you to stay cool and detached. I’m frankly surprised, I’m very very surprised. I can’t get over it.
DUDARD: Well I’m surprised, too. Or rather I was. Now I’m starting to get used to it.

Things become more ominous, as Berenger and Daisy become the only humans left.

BERENGER: [darting to the radio] Let’s turn on the radio for the news!
DAISY: Yes, we must find out how things stand!
[The sound of trumpeting comes from the radio. BERENGER peremptorily switches it off. But in the distance other trumpetings, like echoes, can be heard.]
BERENGER: Things are getting really serious! I tell you frankly, I don’t like it!
[She is trembling.]
BERENGER: [very agitated] Keep calm! Keep calm!
DAISY: They’ve taken over the radio stations!
BERENGER: [agitated and trembling] Keep calm, keep calm!
[DAISY runs to the up-stage window, then to the down-stage window and looks out; BERENGER does the same in the opposite order, then the two come and face each other centre-stage.]
DAISY: It’s no joke any longer. They mean business!
BERENGER: There’s only them left now; nobody but them. Even the authorities have joined them.
[They cross to the windows as before, and meet again centre-stage.]
DAISY: Not a soul left anywhere.
BERENGER: We’re all alone, we’re left all alone.

Berenger attempts to save the world with Daisy, but even Daisy turns in the end, leaving Berenger all alone.

BERENGER: How can we save the world, if you don’t?
DAISY: Why bother to save it?
BERENGER: What a thing to say l Do it for me, Daisy. Let’s save the world.
DAISY: After all, perhaps it’s we who need saving. Perhaps we’re the abnormal ones.
BERENGER: You’re not yourself, Daisy, you’ve got a touch off ever.
DAISY: There aren’t any more of our kind about anywhere, are there?
BERENGER: Daisy, you’re not to talk like that!
[DAISY looks all around at the rhinoceros heads on the walls, on the landing door, and now starting to appear along the footlights.]
DAISY: Those are the real people. They look happy. They’re content to be what they are. They don’t look insane. They look very natural. They were right to do what they did.
BERENGER: [clasping his hands and looking despairingly at DAISY] We’re the ones who are doing right, Daisy, I assure you.
DAISY: That’s very presumptuous of you!
BERENGER: You know perfectly well I’m right.
DAISY: There’s no such thing as absolute right. It’s the world that’s right–not you and me.

To the end, when Berenger realizes that he alone must fight:

BERENGER: People who try to hang on to their individuality always come to a bad end! Oh well, too bad! I’ll take on the whole 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 !

Once again, a timely play from convergence that was well-directed by Jonathan Wilhelm, with a fantastic set by Wilhelm as well—stark white set-pieces with black and white costumes, which stand in contrast to the muddled mess that humans make of belief and logic. Tom Kondilas is wonderful as the increasingly frantic Berenger, and he even rocks a ‘fro like Gene Wilder in the movie. It’s a long show, but definitely worth seeing.

Scene Four is a triumph in hilarity. Isle of Mercy goes across the river to sell the watch and runs into a carny (CROW’S-FOOT) selling a crowd of people (Chorus) on purchasing a ticket to see the mysterious GUYANOUSA inside the carny tent. The description is something to read, my favorite bit being “a creature / So lopsided – with feet the longer on one / Side than the t’other—that it can graze / On the steepest mountain slope.” ‘Than the t’other.’ Must be a brogue. Everyone pays a quarter to see the marvelous beast, which mysteriously breaks free at the proper moment sending the crowd fleeing for their lives, except Isle of Mercy. She wants to see the Guyanousa, leading to some whopping lies by Crow’s-Foot and a back-and-forth between the two characters that’s worth a read. Throughout the exchange, though, Crow’s-Foot, tellingly, degenerates from a consummate barker and performer to a misogynistic slug that verbally abuses Isle of Mercy and convinces her (somehow) to be a whore for him.

The POP STAR interlude at Scene 5 is, by far, one of the most bizarre scenes I’ve ever read and I’d simply love to see it on stage. The Pop Star is a scarecrow stuck on a post in the ground, and who can only move his “head and hands” as he plays the enormous guitar he holds. His group of followers / fans / mindless inhuman machines (Chorus) do nothing but moan and sway, and “are mounted on short stilts, and they lean together, forming a kind of human tripod.” Throughout, the scene is punctuated by frozen tableaux at the stanza breaks in the Pop Star’s song. The song is dryly repetitive, mindless, and cliché. Into this walk Santouche and By Way Of (BW) seeming very like they are on a date. BW attempts to nudge Santouche into appreciating the music and enjoying himself; however a short series of conversational missteps ends with BW calling Santouche a “bum lay.” Ouch. Santouche doesn’t take kindly to that and the scene ends with him insulting the music, and By Way Of, and stomping off.

Santouche stomps off but soon stumbles into Scene 6, where the MAN “is standing in a waist-deep grave he has dug.” The Man turns out to be WILLIAM McKINLEY who has killed GROVER CLEVELAND because Cleveland would not bury McKinley alive. Being that Mac Wellman is from Cleveland, I get a kick out the references to an Ohio president, a city, and, somewhere, the Chagrin River. As McKinley was the Republican president following Cleveland, I can only assume there is some sort of political commentary here, but it’s gone over my head. However, there’s quite a bit of gunplay in the scene and McKinley was on the wrong end of a gun… So, Cleveland wouldn’t bury McKinley alive, so McKinley shot and killed him. McKinley then pulls his gun on Santouche, who is strongly encouraged by McKinley to talk Cleveland into rising from the dead and finishing what he wouldn’t the first time around. There also appears here the beginning of a running gag regarding Santouche’s inability to recognize “a stiff” when he sees one. Santouche puts on a fine show of talking to Cleveland: he uses some fancy words and some delicate phrasing that’s just real fine to hear. Alas, it is to no avail, but Santouche manages to take the gun from McKinley and, after a brief argument, Santouche buries McKinley alive (in spite of the protests McKinley now makes).

Scene 7 breaks from our episodic journey with Santouche and returns to Isle of Mercy, who is sitting on a rock gazing at the moon while the Chorus as FIRST CHILD and SECOND CHILD sing a short song about Isle of Mercy. The Children then engage Isle of Mercy in a discussion. The discussion is filled with the moon, the stars, a rock with a face on it, and ghosts, and thus is very Fairy Tale/Nursery Rhymish. The children claim “We borned ourselves / Out of rocks.” The discussion turns from this to a “where do babies come from” conversation that is interrupted, at just the right moment, by Crow’s-Foot, who has come to turn Isle of Mercy out for the first time. Crow’s-Foot and Isle of Mercy argue about whether or not IM will whore herself. Crow’s-Foot wins when he threatens to lay into her with another one of his speeches (presumably similar in kind to that about the Guyanousa).

At this point in the play I have been struck at thinking on the journey of Isle of Mercy versus that of Santouche. Isle of Mercy is kind (as her name would imply) and extremely pliable. She is not stupid, so it is stupefying why she makes the choices she makes—even in light of her explanation later in the play (which I’ll discuss). Isle of Mercy is acted on by the world. Santouche on the other hand is not kind and acts on the world, usually with highly adverse consequences. This I’m sure, has Wellman poking holes in sex roles, as compliance and malleability are qualities traditionally associated with women, whilst men thrust themselves into the world a la [amazon_link id=”0679741011″ target=”_blank” ]Camille Paglia[/amazon_link]. Santouche, acting out of perpetual rage, is unable to see himself (recognize himself) and destroys and misunderstands everything he encounters. Santouche manifests, almost, like a broken [amazon_link id=”0140268863″ target=”_blank” ]Odysseus[/amazon_link]—having no compass or direction at all. Santouche is dashed against the rocks of fate or chance and has no greater vision than the consequent moment. Wellman, here, is pointing to something very terrible in our society—this nihilism we exude.

To be continued….