Episode 095: Rhinoceros by Eugène Ionesco

Host: Douglas Schatz Guest: Omar Elerian

Welcome to The Play Podcast where we explore the greatest new and classic plays. Each episode we choose a single play to talk about in depth with our expert guest. We’ll discuss the play’s origins, its themes, characters, structure and impact. For us the play is the thing.

A rhinoceros charges through the square of a small French village, and soon all of its inhabitants are being transformed into rhinoceros themselves. Eugène Ionesco’s 1959 absurdist satire, Rhinoceros, was conceived as a metaphor for support for the rise of Fascism in Europe between the world wars, and for conformism more generally.

As we record this episode an imaginative new adaptation of the play is playing at the Almeida theatre in London, and I’m delighted to be joined by the show’s translator and director, Omar Elerian.