Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1962-07-08
Good People Make
Bad Rhinoceroses

RHINOCEROS: A play by
Eugene IOnescO. Translated
by Derek ProuSe. Grove
Press paperback: $1.95;
school text edition edited
by Reuben Y. Ellison and
Stowell C. Cooling. (Holt,
Rhinehart & Winston,
$3.400
Eugene Ionesco's "Rhinoc-
eros" which opens at the
Olney Theater Tuesday, has
recently been published in
two American editions. 1t is a
piece which unlike many good
plays is no less entertaining
to read than to see; I have
read few books during the
last year so provocative in
content or so def in realiza-
ton.
Ionesco is perhaps the
most prominent member Of
the French group contribut-
ing to the "theater of the
absurd" In "Rhinocereos,"
absurdity should not be con-
fused with nonsense or with
the fantastic. The effect of
the play is achieved by the
juxtaposition of the sober
est reality with one single
supernatural enormity-the
transformation of human be-
ings into rhinoceroSes. In
this respect it is precisely like
many of the stories of Kafka
THE Metamorphosis," for
example, in which the awak-
ening of a man to find him
self turned into a beetle
is the only unusual feature OF
a tale which thereafter I'M
folds as almost oStentatiously
plain and drab reality.
"Rhinoceros" is an EXPOSE
ton of the universally of
mass psychosis in today'S So
ciety, of the almost inSu-
perable appeal of the vulgar
cliche, and of the terrible
moral and intellectual con-
flict a simple man finds
himself in when he wants to
live and think according to
his nature rather than swell
the irresistible mass of his
fellow-beings and find per-
sonal safety in their num-
bers.
In a small town in the
south of France, a rhinoceros
appears one fine Sunday
morning. stampeding through
the streets, humping against
the shattered shop windows,
crushing a kitten, painting
and roaring in hoarse in
Elections. The inhabitants of
the village at first exhibit a
normal curiosity and con-
cern-the town has neither
zoo nor swamps. and pachy-
derms are rare birds. Soon
the discussion splinters into
a dozen segmentS. Has any
body really seen the beast.
does it have one horn or two,
if it is a unicorn, it is Asiatic
or African, or Uice UerS1,
what is the color of the cat
it trampled? After a time it
is discovered that there are
many rhinoceroses, and that
townspeople are turning
green, developing thick skins,
growing horns on their fore
heads, and in fact actually
turning into genuine quadru-
peds.
With the increase of the
herd, the question of what
the rhinoceroSes sig nifty
gradually loses its impor-
lance, and the feeling wakes
that perhaps rhinoceritis is
somehow the proper and
ideal state of being. After all.
don't rhinoceroseS nave
rights, and why should
humans imagine that their
own way of life is Sacrosanct?
Nobody becomes a rhinoceroS
unless he wills the metamor-
phosis, but the line of least
resistance is to join the herd.
One by one the characters
exchange their individuality
for the comfortable anonym-
ity of the triumphant beast.
A wife follows her lovelorn
husband, a well-adjusted
sensible man realizes that it
is his duty not to resist prog
ress. a logician, finding the
statement of the problem of
paramount interest and the
solution inconsequential, has