May 27, 1999
BY LUCIA MAURO
Eugene Ionesco's grim vision of humanity takes on lumbering proportions in his anti-Fascist absurdist play ``Rhinoceros,'' now at National Pastime Theater. When a self-centered society conforms to the homogenous ideals of a dangerous political system (in this case, Nazi Germany), its citizens are transformed into the play's title beast. The always radical Ionesco carries the phrase ``herd mentality'' to a metaphoric plane.
Director Laurence Bryan takes a modern-day activist approach to Ionesco's sardonic play. He replaces the Fascist threat with an insidious corporate global takeover in which megacompanies own the media, entertainment and other related industries. This idea is underscored by Bryan's subliminal product placements. His main targets are Disney, Starbucks and McDonald's--whose familiar logos are displayed throughout in a robotic style not unlike the chronic product promotion in the film ``The Truman Show.''
Despite clever efforts to hammer home its arguments with visual effects, including the use of costumes to make sly commentaries on Native Americans, Louis Farakkhan and the painting ``American Gothic,'' National Pastime's interpretation gets lost in a disjointed staging. And the confusing video montages should be scrapped altogether. Ionesco's ``hero'' is an inebriated idealist named Berenger (a blandly sympathetic Dominic Conti), who vows he will not follow the fickle crowds.
Slowly, the threat of national conformity creeps into Berenger's seemingly ordered universe. Even his friendly adversary, John (the commanding Arch Harmon), falls victim to a collective stamping-out of individuality. And neither Berenger's bombshell girlfriend Daisy (Robin Margolis), nor the smug Logician (Richard Cotovsky) can escape the allure of mass acceptance--and, ultimately, mass anonymity.
By the end, humans have regressed to a raging animalistic state and are concerned only with the basic needs of physical survival. This wildly uneven production alternates between moments of biting insight and deadly dull ramblings. The creative design--featuring Joey Wade's cartoonishly incisive set, Ralph Trombone's stark lighting and Bryan's thunderous sound design--obviously wanted to make burning statements about the very serious threat of consumer-culture homogeneity.
But the entire company also needs to step back and consider the audience. Whatever brilliant ideas that the members of National Pastime Theater may have generated among themselves in the production's formative stages never fully materialize for viewers, who undoubtedly will be more baffled or downright bored than enlightened. Toward the end of this show's self-indulgent 2 1/2-hour running time, those lumbering rhinos are a welcome diversion from the sorry laments of whatever human characters remain onstage.
