TravelCent

Rhinos in San Francisco

The rhinos are going away, too soon for some of us, who only like to think when there are other people around to tell us how to think next. The extraordinary work of the Boxcar Theatre took its turn on the strange, wonderful, and prescient Ionesco play, Rhinoceros , and no one has been the same since. In fact, no one has ever been the same in San Francisco, a fiercely individualist city that is known for its power to give people room to follow their own inner visions.

This is a perfect match, then, and it provided an even more exciting theatrical experience than the usual. Visitors to town could buy the ticket, leave their San Francisco hotel , and enjoy a provocative evening that makes the line between the theatrical dream and the living dream very blurry, and a city with fog can be one where distinctions are difficult, and often unnecessary. In this case, however, it’s good to distinguish between rhinos and the rest, because the rest of us are fewer and fewer, and it’s hard to know exactly what’s at stake.

Theatre is a place that reflects culture, using the best parts of the rest of the arts to make it possible for visions to exchange themselves. This is true to the form, then, taking chances, and taking names. The text becomes an object, as useful as any other, and there are mashups and revisions, and hypertext, taking the classic work into another dimension.

Does Ionesco need another dimension? The one who creates worlds where human beings are changing into beasts is already inhabiting somewhere extraordinary. It’s nothing out of science fiction, either, here the threat has something to do with a menacing, totalitarian otherness. What other dimensions are necessary? Here, the Boxcar Theatre really makes a mark, because there are places to launch into the present within the script, and the style demands a revisioning every few years, so that it can continue to breathe. An urgent message being bellowed even by those who already have horns.

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