Description

New Hampshire Theatre Project’s Youth Repertory Company will present Eugene Ionesco’s absurdist classic, Rhinoceros, on May 15-24. One day, the residents of a small provincial French town begin to experience unsettling brushes with a rampaging rhinoceros. While others find these attacks shocking and problematic, the simplistic, kind-hearted protagonist Berenger is seemingly disinterested. Events begin to take a strange turn as Berenger's friends, co-workers, and his romantic interest become tangled in this web of “rhinocerotic” intrigue and he is forced to choose sides.
 
Directed by Robin Fowler, Rhinoceros is a play that from its inception has challenged the status quo. One of the major influences of absurdist theatre, Ionesco's play still resonates with its themes of blind conformity, totalitarianism, metamorphosis, love, despair, and death. The illogical comedy of Rhinoceros hits on many touchstones of the human experience, feeling both familiar and incredibly alien at the same time.