The Triangle

Issue date: 10/26/07 Section: Arts & Entertainment

Berenger(left) is the play's main protagonist. He's constantly challenging the norm, going so far as to break the fourth wall to do so in order to remain a man and not turn into a rhino.

It may be hard to imagine how one can take a play about people turning into rhinoceroses and push it even further over the edge of reality. But imagination is hardly lacking in a theatre company whose artistic mission incorporates puppets. Not only does Mum Puppet theatre's vision adjust Eugene Ionesco's post-war absurdist "Rhinoceros" for a 21st century audience, it takes his ideas one step further, in a subtly brilliant piece of theatre.

The play, an allegory about fascism and conformity in which anti-hero Berenger refuses to give into the herd and become a Rhinoceros, is brought to another level by certain characters portrayed as puppets being manipulated by an unseen puppeteer. But Mum Puppet's production also does not give in to the herd by conforming to a standard contemporary interpretation. While other theatre companies might take the obvious route of dappling the stage with consumer products and other symbols of mass conformity, Mum Puppet instead addresses the script from a dramaturgical often overtly analytical angle.

This is where the show gains an edge and pushes the bounds of theatre. While Ionesco lightly touches upon meta-theatricality when his character Jean advises Berenger in Act I to see an Ionesco play, director and Mum Puppet's Artistic Director Robert Smythe seizes upon this moment as a meta-theatrical gateway and not only strides through it, he builds a three story house on the other side.

Under Smythe's direction, Berenger literally carries the script around and makes no effort to hide it. In fact, the big bold words across the cover "Act I. Rhinoceros by Ionesco" are impossible to miss.

The effect of seeing an actor holding a script on the stage of a fully produced show has an immediate impact. 1) It pulls you out of the show. 2) It makes you wonder why this choice was made. As a result, one is forced to be an active part of their theatre experience, a challenge rarely offered to audiences. By making it impossible to watch the play without viewing it as a play, Smythe has shifted a modern piece of theatre into a postmodern statement.

Continued...

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