The Rhinoceros in the Room

JOE WOODWARD
4 days ago
6 min read

Sweating man frantically types on keyboard, looking panicked. A rhino with a cigar is painted on the wall behind him. Papers and mug nearby. — Artist writer director faces a battle for art itself in the face of trigger warnings and self-censorship

From ancient inaccessible cave art to the banned works of artists, writers and performers, the obstacle for all creative activity is censorship and more significantly self-censorship. The threat of benefactors cutting off or denying financing, the changing political/social environment and imagined or real threats of ostracism by fellow artists/colleagues pose the great challenge to the essential art of seeing. Novels such as Koestler's "Darkness at Noon" and Dostoyevsky's "The Devils" explore such issues. However, in an oblique and highly significant way, Eugene Ionesco's play "Rhinoceros" provides perhaps the strongest exposition of the gravitation tendency threatening, not only creative expression, but the very notion of individual identity itself.

Audiences viewing Eugene Ionesco's play "Rhinoceros" may well come with preconceptions as to what it is about. Is the Rhinoceros really Woke or Trumpism or Fascism or Communism or Religion or Migrants banging at the doors ... To reduce the play down to such banal explanations is to seriously undermine and underestimate the real power of Ionesco's writing. To frame the play in terms of some concrete context giving it a superficial meaning is to destroy its very essence. While there is evidence that aspects came from Ionesco's own experience with friends and colleagues becoming Fascists in Rumania, this is not the full story.

Ionesco is quoted as saying:

“The supreme trick of mass insanity is that it persuades you that the only abnormal person is the one who refuses to join in the madness of others, the one who tries vainly to resist,” he said in a 1983 discussion of Rhinoceros." (quoted in https://magazine.1000libraries.com/the-incredible-life-of-eugene-ionesco-father-of-the-theatre-of-the-absurd/)

But don't we see this in all of life's experience; be it socially, culturally, within families, politically and within the microcosm and the macrocosm of all existence? I am sure that within the play, the leading character of Berenger might well be diagnosed by some pseudo psychologist or ideologue as clinically insane or at least as having a major disorder. I am sure somewhere, an academic study or analysis has come to criticise and damn the character as having major flaws thus denying him the sincere standpoint on which to challenge the dominant progression of mass hysteria. Alternatively, Ionesco might be criticised for positing an individualist model of cultural behaviour that challenges collective insanity.

In preparation for directing this play, I have found a number of sources to be very informative, stimulating and relevant; but the most useful is: Darkness at Noon by Arthur Koestler

Darkness at Noon

In Koestler's novel, a former leader of a revolution, Rubashov, is being held for trial for some seeming betrayal of the ruling party. His interrogation by Ivanov, a veteran revolutionary and former colleague of Rubashov’s, is a masterpiece of psychological exposition. It details the way pressure of conformity to even the most absurd of ideals and commitment to a collective narrative can compress and seep into the consciousness of even the strongest mindset. Based on aspects of the Stalinist show trials, we see how self-extinction can produce the desired outcomes of the social and political architecture of the state; the voluntary self-denial as a weapon of some seeming greater ideal!

To compare a hyper-realist novel such as "Darkness at Noon" with an absurdist comedy like "Rhinoceros" might seem a bit stretched; at least initially! Yet, given the extreme differences in form, both works feature a central character, Rubashov in "Darkness at Noon" and Berenger in "Rhinoceros", that is struggling to maintain his own sense of worth confronted by collective insanity. Both characters have psychological pressures put on them by people who are very close to them. Both face a monolith that threatens to cave in upon their very being.

The idea that one's oppressor is the source of one's salvation ultimately leading to disaster and death struck an instant cord with me. If one is alienated enough or psychologically and spiritually malnourished, the platform is there for one to gravitate to the hideous strength; that compelling attraction that creates its own magnetic pull even as it repels. In Rhinoceros, we are introduced to the humdrum and petty fascinations of people so preoccupied by the trivialities and semantic playgrounds of daily lives where nothing beyond the moment has any impact or meaning. Even a rampaging rhinoceros in the house makes little impact.

In the "Darkness at Noon" universe, it is the Rubashovs and Ianvos who play these fascinations as if in a game of chess.

The Production

A play is not a philosophical discourse; though it might well have elements of such discourse contained within it. Being aware of serous core themes should not then stifle the absurdity and inherent comedy created within the theatrical form of the work. "Rhinoceros" is a funny play. People's foibles and petty obsessions become the source of its inherent humour and universal qualities. Characters are slight extensions of people we know and, if we are honest, of ourselves. Ionesco's obsession with the banality of language is highlighted in the seeming ordinariness of so much dialogue with some internal monologues providing moments of personal insight by the central character who displays a constant and creative dissatisfaction. The play allows a production to extend a huge range of theatrical elements to create a huge pastiche through which to experience the very nature of absurd existence. The medium is the message to a large extent. As a director, one must be then cautioned against allowing too much semi-realism or didactic suggestions to infiltrate the style and motivations for the action.

Ironically, it is Koestler who writes simply of a fundamental basis for absurdist comedy; a rationale for his serious intent while extolling its seeming ridiculous premise. Koestler states:

"We all know that there is only one step from the sublime to the ridiculous; the more surprising that Psychology has not considered the possible gains which could result from the reversal of that step."

He goes on to offer the analogy of bio symbolism in discussing the value of laughter: "The bacillus of laughter is a bug difficult to isolate; once brought under the microscope, it will tum out to be a yeast-like, universal ferment, equally useful in making wine or vinegar, and raising bread." (Koestler THE ACT OF CREATION, Hutchinson & Co London, 1964 p31)

What can be deceptively frivolous or superficially funny, might also turn out as the seed for something insightful and serious. Most comedians know this. Writers from the ancient Greeks to Shakespeare to Edward Albee and Ionesco have all utilised this basic understanding. In "Rhinoceros" it isn't the beast that provides absurdity; it is the reactions and the interactions of the character that provide the comedy and the absurdity. It is a very different device to that used by Kafka and later Stephen Berkoff in "Metamorphosis" where a man transforms into an animal. Gregor Samsa becoming the bug is an extension of his personal alienation. The Rhinoceros is an external manifestation of irrational compulsion. Both works are absurd. Both deal with isolation. While "Metamorphosis" presents the bug as a curse; "Rhinoceros" presents the animal transformation as a kind of hysterical liberation ... a willing physical, intellectual and emotional adoption of something inhuman!

"Rhinoceros" contains more of the "bacillus of laughter" and from it we hope to evoke some transformations in both cast and audiences alike. Productions are chosen through consideration of contexts and capacity to produce. I wouldn't take too much imagination to identify a cultural/social context for such a work as Rhinoceros. We considered the capacity for our company to utilise dance, drama, music, exquisite costumes, puppetry and masks, design and then to provide for audience comfort in the form of light meals, a licensed bar and seating choices for the duration.

The Director and the Rhinoceros

All very well! But obviously, I am evading the question. How do I as director face the inevitable Rhino in the room; the one in my room that taunts and demands my eventual capitulation! That extreme compulsion to please and placate; the one that offers to avoid those tricky and difficult conversations with participants and with my masters who might challenge my soul! The Rhino dresses well and even smiles while trying to assure my tempestuous inclinations that I would do better to stay more closely to the more dominant passivity of therapeutic art or of narcissistic indulgences so commonly presented as theatre. That Rhino in the room who points continuously to my own bullshit and my vanity! That Rhino that constantly points to my outmoded and seeming nostalgia for what once was and never really could be ... The Rhino lovingly assuages my emotions and offers a new way forward. The Rhino is no longer a beast ... the Rhino graciously offers to take the burden of my identity and relieve me of all doubts ...

That rhinoceros in the room will be different for each participant. Yet through laughter and intriguing imagery, perhaps it will haunt the dreams of all who witness the event. And this is the aim ...

Joe Woodward

(8 Jan 2026)