BWW Reviews: OUT LOUD Theatre Immerses the Audience in Brilliant RHINOCEROS

Theater is often at its best when it is unconventional. Surprising. Innovative. While there is certainly merit in sticking to the old-fashioned and traditional ways of doing things, there's also great value in doing something new and outside-the-box. The success of doing so depends on many things, from the technical aspects of a production to the ability of the actors to create and tell the story in ways the audience can relate to, even in unfamiliar trappings. So far in the short lifespan of OUT LOUD Theatre, the company has excelled in doing just that, masterful storytelling that is delivered in creative and exciting ways.

The second show of OUT LOUD's current season is the Eugene Ionesco drama Rhinoceros. A classic example of Theatre of the Absurd, the play deals with a small town where all of the residents are slowly, one by one, transforming into the titular animal. While the townspeople struggle, at first, to understand what is happening, they eventually succumb to the transformation, some more willingly than others. In the end, all have become animals, figuratively and literally, for better or worse, except for one man, left alone to fight back against what may be inevitable.

Ionesco, who wrote the play in 1959, loads the text with eloquent wordplay and witty banter. There are numerous discussions dealing with profound, existential questions, as everything is doubted, questioned and debated. He gives his audience more than a few themes and ideas to chew on, from the battle between reason and emotion to the problems and questions inherent in conformity, pack (or herd) mentality and groupthink. We watch as Ionesco's polite, civilized human characters devolve into snorting, stomping, frightening animals and we are forced to ask ourselves, "Which is the better?" and "Which one would we rather be?"

All of these existential dilemmas are presented in mesmerizing fashion by OUT LOUD'S Artistic Director, and Director of this production, Kira Hawkridge. Her company again inhabits the surprisingly perfect theatrical space in the Mathewson Street Theater, on the fourth floor of the Methodist Church. For their previous production, Hawkridge had the audience move with the action of the play, walking around the space, from room to room, following the actors and the story as they progressed. This time, the audience remains seated but their seats do not remain in place. Instead, the seats are on rolling platforms, two seats to a platform, which are moved around the space by the actors, throughout the production.

Specifically in terms of this new wrinkle, actually moving an audience around on rolling seats during the play, there are mixed results. To call it a gimmick would be to sell them short and not give Hawkridge and her team enough credit. It's more than that. The problem, though, is two-fold. First, the changing configuration of the audience never really changes enough. It's almost always a circle, just a larger or smaller one. At times, it just feels repetitious and unnecessary, a waste of time and energy, as we get closer to and then farther away from the actors, over and over.

Secondly, and more importantly, it really doesn't help to tell the story, except for one particular moment. In the previoius production, moving the audience throughout the space really helped to create and tell the story. This time, though, all the rolling back and forth, getting closer and farther, doesn't really add to the story telling or the experience. Most of the time, if the audience was left in the same place for the entire play, the viewing experience would be exactly the same. The exception is one moment, towards the play's very end, when Hawkridge makes a bold and unique choice. She does something with the rolling platforms that really does help to tell the story and also makes the audience a part of it. It's too bad she didn't do more of that throughout the production. If you're going to roll the audience around, then really do it. Really shake them up and make the experience something jarring and completely different. Hawkridge and her team came close, but just didn't get there.

In truth, the best parts of the production have nothing to do with rolling platforms and changing audience configurations. That's because Hawkridge and her company are so good at telling a story, visually, on stage, through the use of every tool at their disposal. Because of that, if they left the audience in place for the entire show, it still would be riveting and hard to forget. This is especially true of the transformation scenes, which are handled brilliantly, using simple pieces of fabric and lengths of rope or ribbon. Hawkridge and her actors don't need more than that. Primarily using their bodies, voices, stomping feet, and something akin to interpretive dance or performance art, they create fantastically dark and nightmarish images of humans, just like us, turning into something darker, something inhuman and brutish.

One human, Berenger, is not transformed and is left to deal with this crisis alone. It is a spectacular performance by Marc Tiberiis II in a role which asks him to do some serious lifting, practically carrying the show on his shoulders. When we first see him, he is convincingly slovenly and scruffy, lazily sitting around, drinking, not giving much concern to anything except making conversation with his friend Jean. As he watches Jean and everyone else transform, Tiberiis creates a believable journey through disbelief, fear, bewilderment, shock, love, hate and just about everything in between.

As Berenger's friend Jean, Joshua Christensen gives an equally brilliant performance. These two actors bounce off of each other wonderfully and are a lot of fun to watch when they are on stage together. Christensen is fabulous as the civil and civilized intellectual "superior" between the two friends, but he is equally, almost frighteningly, perfect when the script calls for him to leave all of that civility and manners behind and succumb to the baser animal instincts.

Berenger also has a love interest, in his co-worker Daisy. Ionesco does not give his female lead a lot of depth of character, leaving her to be mostly a stereotype. On the other hand, the character is given a breath of true life by Aubrey Dion, who is quickly becoming one of the finest young actresses working in our area. Her scenes with Tiberiis are among the show's highlights, as the two have a fantastic chemistry on stage. The charming David Sackal also shares some great moments with Tiberiis, as the two debate and discuss the situation, often in ways that pit logic or reason against emotion.

Hawkridge has not stopped there in regards to assembling a talented cast. The rest of the ensemble are all excellent, Siobhan LaPorte-Cauley, Sarah Leach, Katie O'Rourke, Erika Rethorn, Chirs LaChapelle, and Emma Sacchetti. O'Rourke and Rethorn, as Botard and The Logician, respectively, stand out especially, both really making something out of supporting roles.

Rhinoceros is another production where OUT LOUD makes the most out of almost everything. While they arguably did not fully realize the potential of the rolling audience platforms, Hawkridge and her company continue to find numerous possibilities and unique ways to bring them to life. They continue to surprise and delight while telling great stories that leave the audience thinking seriously about important questions while being seriously entertained.

Rhinoceros runs through Saturday, April 25th at the The Mathewson Street Theater, 134 Mathewson Street, Providence. Tickets are $15.00 when purchased at the door, shows are Thursday, Friday and Saturday at 7:30pm. For tickets and more information, visit the company's website at www.outloudtheatre.org.

Pictured: Marc Tiberiis II and the cast of Rhinoceros. Photo by Nile Scott Shots.

To post a comment, you must register and login.