AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |
Back to Blog
Ionesco rhinoceros costumes1/15/2024 "Literally, a rhinoceros has to run across the stage-how do you do that? Ceilings have to collapse-how do you do that?" "There were lots of logistical issues," she said. Nicely jokes now, but she and the cast encountered many challenges along the way. "It's an ongoing joke-it makes no sense." "It's three acts and four scenes," said Nicely. The play is ridiculous right down to its construction. "A lot of each character's development arises out of Brenna pushing our actions into registers more and more absurd," said Schonberg. "I could try the craziest things with this genre, and that was helpful." "It was a creative outlet," Nicely added. "When you have a play that calls for rhinoceroses running around and things falling apart, you can do whatever you want." "This kind of play is very open to interpretation," she said. Nicely embraced the outrageous opportunities that "absurdism" afforded her in her directorial development. Anyone can find moments in this play that they might recognize from their own lives, rhinos or no rhinos."īecause of their unrealistic and exaggerated plotlines, dialogue and characters, Ionesco's plays are usually categorized as absurdist, but according to Nicely, "Absurdism was a tag that was put on after they were written." "It becomes a real situation in which real fears, excitements and dramas arise. ![]() "Even though the play is very abstract, I sometimes forget that when performing," said Schonberg. The universal themes in "Rhinoceros" also transcend its distracting and at times disconcerting, illogical content. "It was written in 1959 but if it's dealing with really central themes that are relevant to human experience, then it's really hard for something like that to go out of date." "What a great play does is transcend time a little bit," Nicely said. Though written in response to the conformist aspects of fascism and other political movements before World War II, "Rhinoceros" still relates to contemporary audiences. ![]() ![]() "It's about friendships, logic, common courtesy, love and the fine line between poetic imagination and reality." "It shows how much society is built off of conformity, how everyone plays a certain role and how going against the grain can be both comic and tragic," said Emily Schonberg '10, who plays Daisy. Isolated from the majority, is he a recluse or redeemer? Meanwhile, his best friend, Jean, and his love interest, Daisy, only complicate the confusion.īrenna Nicely '10, who directed "Rhinoceros" as part of an independent study, said, "It's a lot about identities-searching for yourself and trying to figure out who you are in a world that doesn't make sense." Berenger questions his role in the world as everyone in his small French town turns into rhinoceroses. The play centers on Berenger, a supposedly semi-autobiographical character that Ionesco wrote into many of his plays. The most celebrated of French and Romanian dramatist Eugene Ionesco's plays, "Rhinoceros" confronts issues of conformity and identity in the wake of World War II. Masque and Gown, in collaboration with the Department of Theater and Dance, opened its fall show, "Rhinoceros," last night. The star of Bowdoin's newest show could trample you.
0 Comments
Read More
Leave a Reply. |