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Rhinoceros by Eugène Ionesco

The SkyBox @ The Adrienne Theatre
Philadelphia, PA

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Rhinoceros tells the story of residents who grow horns, crush staircases, trample flowerbeds and decimate their city following an outbreak of Rhinoceritis. Collective hysteria overwhelms the citizenry while two friends struggle to maintain their identity in a world run amok with conformity. Hailed a "masterpiece" in its 1960 Paris premiere, Rhinoceros introduced Broadway audiences to the Romanian playwright's theatrical brilliance the following year on Broadway in a production featuring Eli Wallach and Tony-winner Zero Mostel. Helming the IRC production are ensemble members Ethan Lipkin and David Stanger (together in Kafka's The Castle and Gogol's Marriage) playing Ionesco's 21st century Felix and Oscar. They lead an ensemble of 10 actors playing 17 roles, including Tomas Dura, Michael Dura, Steve Lippe, Paul McElwee, Kirsten Quinn, Jerry Rudasill, Bob Schmidt and Maryruth Stine.

Ionesco's first play, The Bald Soprano, written in 1950, remains the longest continuously running show in Paris. Over half a century later, the seminal works that earned Ionesco a reputation as the "Inventor of the Metaphysical Farce" and "Shakespeare of the Absurd" are enjoying a well-deserved renaissance in New York theaters and around the world. Indeed, Ionesco's parable warning of the dangers of conformity has lost none of its relevance in a modern world. Political pundit Bill Maher commented recently: "We need more people speaking out. This country is not overrun with rebels and free thinkers. It's overrun with sheep and conformists."

Eugène Ionesco (1909 -1994) was a Romanian playwright who spent much of his childhood in Paris. In 1936, his writer and friend Denis de Rougemont who was in Nuremberg, described the "delirium which electrified him" as he was lured into a Nazi rally attended by Hitler. His conclusion: "I am alone and they are all together." Ionesco credits de Rougemont's compelling journal entries as the inspiration for his short story Rhinoceros, which he later adapted into a three act play. The diary sparked potent memories for Ionesco, who 20 years earlier endured the fascist Iron Guard, an event that ended in severed ties with his father due to irreconcilable political differences. Ionesco writes: "I thought that it was strange to assume that it was abnormal for anyone to be forever asking questions about the nature of the universe, about what the human condition really was, my condition, what I was doing here, if there was really something to do. It seemed to me on the contrary that it was abnormal for people not to think about it, for them to allow themselves to live, as it were, unconsciously."

2014 marks The Idiopathic Ridiculopathy Consortium's eighth season presenting challenging and rarely-produced absurdist gems from authors around the globe. In 2013, The IRC season included the critically-acclaimed sold out production of Franz Kafka's The Castle. Rhinoceros will operate under a contract with Actors' Equity Association. The IRC is a 501C3 non-profit organization, and a member of The Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance. The IRC's 2014 season is made possible in part by generous grants from Wyncote Foundation; The Samuel S. Fels Fund; The Philadelphia Cultural Fund; The Pennsylvania Partners in the Arts program of the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, a state agency funded by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency with support also provided by PECO and administered regionally by the Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance; The Charlotte Cushman Foundation; CHG Charitable Trust; and Plannerzone.

Location

The SkyBox @ The Adrienne Theatre
2030 Sansom Street - 3rd Floor
Philadelphia, PA 19103
United States

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