The Last Task

I have seen a filmed performance of Rhinoceros presented by The Baltimore Annex Theater (the first part of it is shown in the article It's happening now!). This adaptation was very entertaining. Compared to the written drama, it was definitely more funny and less serious, and now I am not talking about the fact that it is always more entertaining to watch the drama than to read it. What I mean is that the producer has approached the play in a different way. It seems to me that he mainly wanted to amuse the audience, rather than convey the message of futility and conformity. Which is not bad, not at all. Moreover, the actors don't always use the words exactly as they are written in the play and their communication is more present-day. In general, I have the feeling that even though the performance is strongly based on Ionesco's book, it is completely different in the interpretation. 

In this scene is extremely impressive!! The sounds, Jean's insanity and his incredible transformation into rhinoceros...The whole play is entertaining, but this scene is especially worth watching. 

Five Quotes

Jean: Life is a struggle, it's cowardly not to put up a fight! (p. 20)

• This quote is extremely interesting because it probably shows Ionesco's life approach. It is even more interesting when we realize that it is said by a man who finally goes through the metamorphosis as one of the first ones. Thus we can say that he does not put up any fight at all. By choosing this sentence, Ionesco probably wanted to show that words we say don't often correspond to the state of mind of ours.    

Berenger: Sometimes one does harm without meaning to, or rather one allows it to go unchecked. (p.97)

• As I said before, Ionesco used the play as an allegory for the uprising of fascism in Romania during the 1930s. For sure, he must have been shocked by the behavior of his friends who joined the fascist movement. Moreover, from what I've read, he must have also felt guilty for not doing anything about it. Thus, we may say that this quote reveals his feelings about the cowardly behavior of people who see that something wrong is happening, but do not do anything to change it. 

Daisy: After all, perhaps is we who need saving. Perhaps we are the abnormal ones. (p. 103)

• Daisy says this sentence at the end of the play when she and Berenger are the only human beings left among the rhinos. It is an interesting turnaround in the situation: at first she is against the rhinos and wants to stay normal; after saying this sentence it seems that she starts to doubt her normality and incline to the side of the <previously> abnormal ones. 

Berenger: What is my language? Am I talking French? I can call it French if I want – and nobody can say it isn’t, I am the only one who speaks it.(p. 107)

• Here we can see how brittle the human definitions of things are. We have all agreed that the language Berenger speaks is French, but it is only a name. Ionesco wanted to show that the names we give to things loose their meaning if we cannot use them in a meaningful conversation. 

(by the way, the language is English, as you might have noticed, but it wasn't changed in the book so I must leave it as it is). 

Logician: If you take six paws from the two cats, how many paws are left to each cat? 

Old Gentleman: We could have one cat with 6 paws <and> one cat with no paws at all.

Logician: In that case, one cat would be especially privileged.

Old Gentleman: And one under-privileged cat deprived of all paws. (p. 21-23)

• I chose this quote to show the absurdity of communication between people, which is nicely visible in the whole play. I was trying to find something more grotesque and absurd, but it is actually impossible to present the absurdity in just few sentences. These conversations usually take about 3 pages in the book and I cannot copy the whole thing here. Anyway, here we can see that the Logician, who is supposed to be rational and reasonable, spends his time talking about nonsense. 

Reference: Ionesco, Eugene. Rhinoceros by Ionesco. New York: Evergreen Original, 1960. 141. Print.

I have finished the play...

...and I have realized an important fact. When I firstly read about the plot of the play, I fell in love with the idea of people changing into rhinoceroses. I was delighted to think about the aspects of human behavior, the complicated nature of human mind, the almighty group pressure and the definitions of normality. The play has given me numerous questions that entertained my mind and soul. However, since I have read everything about the masterpiece before reading the masterpiece itself, I wasn't that overwhelmed when I was finally reading it. Doesn't is also spoil your joy from reading, when you know the ending? Well, if the book is nicely written, it doesn't. However, I have never read a nicely written drama. Drama is here to be acted on stage, not to be read for entertainment. I believe it is only the producer who should read it and make it worth watching. Of course, we were supposed to take the role of a producer. Thus, it is only natural that we had to read the play. What I am trying to say is that I admire Ionesco and his motivations, but I cannot praise the way the book is written.
 (the first half of task 9)

TASK 8 (what a lovely title!)

Stockholm Syndrome

Rhinoceros, Eugene Ionesco’s masterpiece about people’s reaction to group pressure and their supposedly strange behavior, is formidable (but not pompous) play which is still up-to-date. Joe Penhall’s review of the play is quite thorough and contains many interesting observations. 

  As it was mentioned several times on this blog, the play itself is full of hopeless interactions between people, the feeling of futility of being and the absurdity of life. Because of this, Penhall compares Rhinoceros to The Plague written by A. Camus, claiming that they are both based on the existentialism. Interestingly, both Camus and Ionesco were against the ‘existentialist’ label and preferred their works to be called absurdist. Nonetheless, it cannot be doubted that the ideas of existentialism appear in their plays more than often. Finally, absurdity is part of existentialism and they cannot be clearly separated in this context.

  In his review, Penhall mentions the Stockholm syndrome, a psychological phenomenon in which the captors are admired by their hostages and the hostages cooperate with them and accept their views and positions. This idea is brilliant in the association with the play. Even though they were the evil creatures at the beginning, everybody finally accepts the rhinos and joins them, which is a nice manifestation of such syndrome. It is somewhat natural, because ‘most children know that the smart thing is to side with the biggest, baddest bully in the playground’ (Penhall). 

  Concerning the relevance of the play, it is true that Ionesco stays quite general, so as to emphasize that the theme of his play is applicable to any society. In the words of the reviewer of this play:  “Perhaps Ionesco deliberately eschewed Camus' specificity and embraced generality in the hope that for all its antic lack of sophistication, bluster, bustle and loquaciousness, Rhinoceros would remain contemporary and universal.” 

REVIEW: 

Penhall, Joe. "Ionesco's Rhinoceros is as relevant as ever."Guardian. (2007). Web. 21 Mar. 2012. <http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/theatreblog/2007/oct/03/ionescosrhinocerosisasrele>.

Protagonist and Antagonist

I'd like to describe these two roles as they appear at the end of the play, as their conflict is most visible there. Obviously, Berenger is the protagonist and his primary motivation is to save the human kind. He stands against the group of rhinoceroses, whose behavior has probably no motivation at all. Thinking about the conflict they face, the rhinos are not the ones that should be blamed for it. Deep inside, they are good and they don't mean any harm. It seems that they just want to live normally, without problems. Berenger is actually the only one who feels some kind of tension. He is the one to start the conflict because he feels endangered by the animals.

..A strange thought has just entered my mind... Having considered the fact that Berenger starts the conflict whereas the rhinos live peacefully side by side, shouldn't we say that Berenger is antagonist and the rhinos are protagonists; and not vice versa??

As it is written in the book: "Who can say where the normal starts and the abnormal begins? Can you personally define the conceptions of normality?" (p. 84) And I am asking: Who can say which side is good and which is bad? Can I personally define the conceptions of goodness and badness? Do I say that the human Berenger is the protagonist just because I am human, too? Why do I think that something which is normal is also good? Why do I think the rhinos are antagonists, just because their existence is something I would call 'abnormal'? Finally, maybe they are the heroes of the play!

It's getting too complicated and this article gives more questions than answers... But I am desperate - As I now incline to the rhino side, am I the same as all the other people in the play? Does it indicate that in that situation,  I would also become a rhinoceros?

Somebody help me! Who is the good one and who is the bad one in this play??!!

TASK 6 (is not really addressed in this article)

Research the author: I have already published the basic information about Eugene Ionesco and I believe it's enough. I don't see the point in rewriting encyclopedias or copying boring information from Wikipedia. Nobody will ever remember these facts, anyway. I am more interested in finding out what kind of person Ionesco was and what his personality was like. Therefore, I found and watched an interview with him on YouTube (see the link below).

Discuss any relevant information about the author and what his or her motivations behind writing this piece were or might have been. Support. Well, this topic is addressed in the article 'It's happening now!'. 
 What interests me now is Ionesco's motivation for writing in general. Why did he write those drama plays? Why did he make them so absurd? This video probably gives us the answer. It starts to be quite thoughtful from 1:57, when he describes his first inspirations. Then he continues to explain what life means to him. Having read two of his plays, I can say that his philosophy of life that he presents in here is very apparent in his works.

The Main Themes

ABSURDITY

I've said it already and I'll say it again, so that you will remember: Eugene Ionesco is Master of the Theatre of the Absurd. And of course, Rhinoceros is full of absurdity. In addition to the fact that people change into rhinos, there are even more situations that leave me perplexed. The best examples of these are the conversations of the (supposedly) reasonable people. They try to use logic and intellect but their arguments always lead to a dead end. Finally, the issue is not solved but even more complicated  I will publish some of the quotes in one of the next posts to make you understand what I mean. As Ms. Helebrantová once mentioned in our lesson, the Theatre of the Absurd is sort of existentialism in drama. Let me quote the almighty Wikipedia which says that existentialists have the "sense of disorientation and confusion in the face of an apparently meaningless or absurd world" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Existentialism). I believe that this is what Ionesco felt when writing this play. 

TRANSFORMATION

Here I don't want to discuss the obvious human-rhino transformation; I just want to say that there are also some changes in people’s minds, their behavior and their characteristics. Let’s start with the main character Berenger – at the beginning of the play he is just a man with no visible interest, not caring about what happens around him. As the play proceeds and all of his friends change into beasts, he starts to freak out. I mean, who wouldn’t? But Berenger is a special case, because at first he was not surprised by anything, not even by the rhino in the streets of a French town. He just didn‘t care. At the end, not only does he care, he also changes into the saviour of the human kind. Moreover, he starts to feel responsible for what’s going on around him.

Another example of transformation is his biggest friend Jean who seems to be very balanced and rational. In the first act, he keeps persuading Berenger to „exercise more will-power and not surrender to life's pressures“ (http://www.sparknotes.com/drama/rhinoceros/themes.html). However, as we all know, it is finally Jean who surrenders to life’s pressures, whereas Berenger acquires a strong will and fights against the majority.

CONFORMITY

If you want to know more about this theme, please read my posts from February 8 and February 15 =).