Becoming a Beast: Rhinoceros from Catastrophic

Kyle Sturdivant is perhaps Houston theater’s most fearless actor. His considerable ego is consumed in Eugène Ionesco’s most famous play, Rhinoceros (1959), as his character, condescending functionary Jean, transforms into a fierce ungulate, stomping the ground, sniffing his friend, frantically searching his forehead for the first hint of a horn, lowering his voice to a bass growl, and balling his fists into what look like hooves. It is a terrifying transformation, horrifying his best friend Berenger (George Parker) who can’t believe what he witnesses. He rushes from Jean’s apartment before he is trampled.

Everyone in the small French town is turning into rhinoceros, stampeding through the town square, trumpeting their altered states, wailing for their wives to join them. Calling for everyone to join them. Come, they roar; think no more, be one of us.

Ionesco’s classic surreal play is an ironic Aesop fairy tale, moral allegory, and passionate condemnation of the rise of fascism. See how easy it is to conform. Follow without questioning, follow your neighbors, do what they do. We won’t hurt you as long as you don’t question what is happening, as long as you don’t oppose us. As long as you’re not an “other,” a member of the resistance, or a Jew.

Ionesco saw this firsthand in Romania and later France. Born in Romania, raised in France, he returned as a teenager to his native Romania after his parents divorced, then returned to France to resume his college studies. But the rise in French antisemitism forced him back to Romania, but there he witnessed the rise of the Romanian Legion of the Archangel Michael, the infamous precursor of the Nazi Iron Guard. At the onset of WWII he left Romania for Marseilles. No one in Europe could run far from the juggernaut.

The hideous ideology of the Nazis, and later Communists, profoundly influenced his writing, no more so than in his first full-length play Rhinoceros. After a career as poet and literary critic, his early one-acts like The Bald Soprano (1948) and The Chairs (1952) pushed him to the front of the absurdists with their “anti-play” conventions of repetitive dialogue, non-linear structure, and bizarre situations. But it was Rhinoceros that would cement his reputation among fellow playwrights and, later, audiences.

Catastrophic revives one of its signature works starring the magnificent leads from its 2017 production, Sturdivant and Parker, also directed by Tamarie Cooper, with cartoon painted drops  designed by Ryan McGettigan, costumes by Macy Lyne out of a Jacques Tati comedy, and Shawn St. John’s tumultuous, thundering sound design. This time the lighting is by Ian Evans. Some of the subsidiary roles repeat: Noel Bowers as the Logician and insufferable Botard; Abraham Zapata as newspaper manager Papillon slowly turning beastly; Karina Pal Montaño-Bowers as the Old Gentleman; Rebecca Randall as Mrs. Boeuf, who jumps down onto her rampaging husband and rides away on his back like Europa on Zeus.

Newcomers are: Sara Jo Dunstan, as impatient Fireman; Mara McGhee, whose beloved cat gets flattened in the second rhino attack; Jovan Jackson as intellectual Dudard, Ionesco’s wicked satire of Sartre who acquiesces to the town’s transformation with dispassionate condescension, and Jenna Morris Miller, as innocent love interest Daisy, who turns into a harridan as she succumbs to the rhino’s siren song.

Sturdivant is his own force of nature and holds the stage with a magnetism not seen since Mesmer; while Parker, not seen for nine years on Houston stages, has been sorely missed. His Berenger, Ionesco’s avatar Everyman, morphs anxiety into the very stuff of drama, almost going mad from his reluctance to become like everybody else. His final defiance, “I’m not capitulating,” ends the play with a blackout. His humanity, which includes his sloven demeanor, his alcoholism, his passive aggressiveness, even his cowardice, will save him, promises Ionesco. Defy, defy, defy. Stay human and flawed, and the beasts of the mob might just remain outside the door.

Rhinoceros continues through October 10 at 7:30 p.m. Monday, October 5, and Thursdays; 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays; and 2:30 p.m. Sundays at Catastrophic Theatre at MATCH, 3400 Main. For more information, call 713-521-4533 or visit catastrophictheatre.com. Pay what you can.