Director Jesse Njus

Scenic Designer Ramsey Knab

Lighting Designer Reid Hardymon

Virginia Commonwealth University

February 2025

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Written by Eugène Ionesco, Rhinoceros is an absurdist anti-fascist work which utilizes Rhinoceroses as a metaphor for fascism. This show is set in the late 1930s. Every character, save the leading man Berenger, transforms into a Rhinoceros before the play finishes. The dialogue describes the Rhinoceroses as characteristically green, so the base costume for each character consists of green-toned dark trousers and custom dyed green-toned collared shirts. These uniforms, with their lack of buttons, represent negative conformity and act as a symbolic alternative to military uniforms. When the characters transform into the creatures they shed their outer layers in front of the audience and dawn brutalist-inspired Rhinoceros heads made of a moldable plastic mesh. This mesh allows the audience to get peaks of the silhouette of the changed-characters' faces, a constant reminder that these beasts were once Berenger's friends and neighbors. To oppose these green monsters, Berenger keeps red undertones throughout the show and never changes clothes, nor as a character until the very end, when he dawns an improvised bright red "capelet", a token from his now-transformed love interest, Daisy.