“Because, no matter how repulsive and monosyllabic and stigmatic and emotionally unstable a rhinoceros may be, our culture is designed to take everyone–near literally–and convince them the rhino life is better.”

Ionesco’s 1950s absurdist theater was near the front edge of such works, deliberately slapping against more “popular” traditional drama of the day , but to call it absurd limits its scope. And as far as its experiments were concerned, European avant-garde theater had long been established. I can definitely see its connection to the existentialist arguments of the day, as well, but in the end we’re better to ask, is it worth reading today?

For me, the answer is a definite “Yes.” Yes, Ionesco’s characters are largely stilted puppets set up to represent attitudes and social functions: some are demure domestics, some unquestioning mercantile, some functionary management, others near-sighted theorists and academics, and unsurprisingly, it is a heavy drinker who is our protagonist. And yes, their dialogue, too, is created for effect rather than human depth: words overlap and synthesize into overt messaging, other dialogue feels empty of depth or complexity. All this is part of the Ionesco’s stripping away of the “human” element–or better, Ionesco’s representation of our bureaucratic and political stripping of that human element. Because, no matter how repulsive and monosyllabic and stigmatic and emotionally unstable a rhinoceros may be, our culture is designed to take everyone–near literally–and convince them the rhino life is better. 

It is a message of subjugation, to be sure, and also one of political tribalism and conformity, but the satisfaction of watching or reading an Ionesco play like Rhinoceros or the one-act plays The Leader or The Future Is In Eggs (also included here) is not that you know ahead of time what the message will be or even that you know the style will be a puppet show of cardboard figures: it is in the mirror effect, the witnessing of this representation, that the power of the play still resides.

Enough of us today immediately see that the 21st century is no better than the mid-20th, that 75 years later we are every bit and more so the thoughtless joiners and parrot-ers of whatever social meme or political conspiracy is afoot. That recognition is easy. But we read Ionesco at first comforted that playwright and viewer or reader together can nod wisely at this herdlike rampaging across the stage. Then again, we wonder how subtle the workings of Ionesco’s hyperbolism, how pointed the accusation, how apt the description of what I did yesterday, said this morning, will do after the play is over.