VCUarts Theatre to premiere ‘Rhinoceros’ play about fascist conformity
Rhinoceroses, played by students, march during a rehearsal at the Singleton Center on Feb. 23. Photo by Andrew Kerley.
Andrew Kerley, Contributing Writer
VCUarts Theatre will premiere their latest Mainstage play “Rhinoceros” at the Singleton Center on Thursday, Feb. 27. The absurdist production is about a French town where the people are slowly turning into rhinoceroses, a metaphor for fascists, according to the lead Eli Wilcox.
Wilcox, a fourth-year theatre student, plays the down-on-his-luck, alcoholic Berenger, a person who “has given up on fitting in, doing his job, falling in love or being a model-anything,” he said.
Berenger slowly becomes the last person standing as the town is overrun by rhinos, according to the play’s website. “Rhinoceros” revels in its absurdity while simultaneously reflecting the deep divisions that permeate contemporary society.
“The biggest theme is the ways in which people are so easily led to a path of just hate and murder and being evil,” Wilcox said.
Jose Tenjo, a fourth-year theatre performance student, plays Botard, a contrarian who doesn’t trust journalists, says the rhinos are not real and moves the goalpost when people prove him wrong.
Tenjo said he is basing his performance off of the right-wing radio host and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones. In the play, he tells the townspeople they cannot trust anyone but himself while basking in the attention.
“There’s actually a point in the show where he tells people, ‘Never become a rhino, rhinos are evil,’ and then literally 24 hours later he becomes a rhino,” Tenjo said.
Tenjo is one of roughly 150 people who have spent the semester preparing for the production, according to the production stage manager Jesslyn Bowers.
Erin Allen, a fourth-year costume design student, said she has been clocking in around 40 hours a week making late 1930s garments and rhino helmets. Allen’s work for the play is littered with symbology, thematic color choices and details as small as pocket squares shaped like rhinoceroses.
“The beginning of it is more kind of kitschy, storybook, almost cartoonish,” Allen said. “As it moves forward in the story it gets a bit darker, structured and uniformed. In the end, I was more inspired by brutalist architecture.”
The play is being directed by Jesse Njus, an assistant professor of theatre history. She said the department chose to put on the play back in 2023, knowing the political events that might transpire in 2025.
Romanian-French playwright Eugène Ionesco wrote “Rhinoceros” in the 1950s just after the rise of fascism in Europe that culminated in World War II and during the rise of communism, according to Njus.
Njus said the play is an exemplar of the absurdist genre, a style of theatre that explores the chaos of life and deconstructs it.
“I’ve been teaching theatre history long enough that I do have a ‘before and after Jan. 6, 2021,’ because that was a shift,” Njus said. “There’s a line that Botard says. He says, ‘No rhinoceros have ever been seen in this country.’ And that, for a long time, was a feeling in the U.S., that we were immune to a lot of this stuff. But, in fact, rhinoceroses can be seen in this country.”
The play is both a warning and a reminder, according to Njus. She said she hopes seeing the story in its absurdist setting will make people think a bit more about “why this happens,” and recognize the ridiculousness of it all.
“There are people who don’t turn into rhinoceroses,” Njus said. “It’s actually a question Berenger asks at the end of the play, ‘Can people turn back?’”
“Rhinoceros” will premiere on Thursday, Feb. 27 at 7:30 p.m. and will have four more showtimes throughout the weekend. Tickets are available on the VCUarts website and cost $20 each. Discounts are available for VCU students.
