Bear with me here, but this revival of Eugène Ionesco’s playfully absurd 1959 drama is terrific. I know, I know, this is the one where the inhabitants of a small town — groan — gradually turn into rhinoceroses. It’s either a broad satire on fascism or a silly story that resists deeper meaning; a pivotal post-war text or an indulgent theatrical in-joke that endlessly upstages itself.
This version, translated and directed by Omar Elerian, with a superb cast led by Ṣọpẹ́ Dìrísù as the everyman protagonist Berenger, manages to be all of these things. It has a knowing wit and a Pythonesque surrealism. It’s lo-fi and technically precise at the same time. True, it starts to drag some time before the end, but then Elerian pulls off a truly devastating final image.
