Word: horgan
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...transcriptions of the original play scripts. But Eugene Ionesco's Rhinoceros received a different treatment. The script was tampered with. New scenes were added, old dialogue was cut. Names and settings were Americanized, and pop music was introduced. The flavor of Ionesco's work was lost. Director Tom O'Horgan transformed Ionesco's forceful drama of the Absurd into a banal comedy...
Ionesco's play, originally set in a small French village, has been transported in the film version to "Anywhere, U.S.A." O'Horgan and Julian Barry, writer of the screenplay, seem to assume that's the only way we can relate to the plot. Americanization of the French names, and a pop music score by Galt MacDermot (Hair) are further attempts at relevancy. If the play really has meaning, it should be able to transcend time and locale...
...Ionesco does have something to tell us in his play. The power of his message derives from a universality which O'Horgan's Americanization can only demean. The play is about conformity. At the end of the story only Stanley (Gene Wilder) remains a human being. Everyone else in the town has been inflicted with rhinoceritis, a mysterious disease which changes them into snorting, thick-skinned rhinos. Originally the beasts are an anomaly in the town. But they become more and more appealing to the people. The human beings yearn to become rhinoceroses. The comfort of conformity becomes more attractive...
...wonderful. His extraordinary facial expressions and contortions transform him into a wild, snorting beast. He begins charging around his bedroom smashing furniture and eating plants. Unfortunately, though this transformation scene is funny, and Mostel is at his absurd best, the scene is just too long and gimmicky. O'Horgan's determination to make the play a conventional comedy ruins the scene. It's always fun to exploit Mostel's talent. But long comic scenes which rely on conventional slapstick devices and stock audience responses have no place in Theater of the Absurd. Slapstick comedy is part of the audience...
...Horgan hangs a portrait of Nixon over Mostel's bed, and cuts away to it throughout Mostel's transformation. This isn't funny. It's just another gimmick to make the theme of political conformity seem more relevant to us. We're not such thick-skinned rhinos that we need such pointed, heavy-handed reminders...