The week in theatre: Rhinoceros; Alfred Hitchcock Presents: The Musical – review

Almeida, London; Theatre Royal, BathA bold revival of Ionesco’s play about the dangers of conformity rings all too true. And Hitchcock’s murderously droll back catalogue is turned into a stylish, suspense-free song and danceWho would have thought that Rhinoceros, written in the 1950s, would prove to be a stage-shaker today? Sometimes taken as a satire on the rise of the Nazis or the lack of resistance to East European authoritarianism, but surely more accurately described as a general attack on unreflecting conformism, Eugène Ionesco’s play is a hard thing to pull off. At least in Britain, where the expectation of naturalism runs deep. After all, the plot turns on the entire human population of a European village – bar one – turning into rhinoceroses.There are touches of Kafka, without the black force. There are Beckettian gleams of despair without Beckett’s lyrical intensity – or brevity. Insisting on the one theme without ever quite making an argument, Rhinoceros can easily become both heavy-footed and elusive: a pachyderm peeping flirtatiously from behind a fan. Continue reading...

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