‘Rhinoceros’ is a roaring comedy

Brandon Petrie and Amanda Coy star in "Rhinoceros," opening Dec. 3 in the John Wright Theatre.

‘Rhinoceros,’ a widely discussed comic allegory that has been a triumphant success in New York, London, Tokyo and most other major cities of the world is coming to the University theatre for eight performances Dec. 3-11.

This is the wildly imaginative play by Eugene Ionesco that symbolized the trend to conformity, the bandwagon psychology, by showing a town full of people exuberantly abandoning their membership in the human race by turning themselves into rhinoceroses until only one man is left.

While all his friends are lecturing him on his stuffiness in remaining human, on his inability to keep instep with the times, on his old-fashioned insistence on sticking to the standards of human decency, culture and morality, when everybody else is eagerly surrendering to a herd instinct and wallowing in ugliness, this lone defender of humanity   struggles to rise above animalism resolves never to give in.

This allegory on the topic of mob psychology is developed along hilarious farcical lines, which bear our Ionesco s claim that a major inspiration for his wacky plays had been the movies of the Marx Brothers.

Since 1950 the Romanian-born French author has been considered one of the most brilliant and also most obscure, leaders of the Avant-garde playwrights   the writers who developed what is called the Theatre of the Absurd. In the English adaptation by Derek Prouse that scored a 33-week run in New York, Rhinoceros turned out to be not at all absurd or hard to understand. Audiences and critics found it laughable, thought-provoking and original.

‘Rhinoceros’ is suitable for the family, however children under the age of 5 are not permitted in the theatre. Performance dates are December 3-4 and Dec. 7-11 at 8 p.m., and Dec. 5 at 2 p.m. All performances are in the John Wright Theatre.

Tickets are $7 for Fresno State Students, $12 for Fresno State faculty/staff, seniors, members of the Alumni Association, and students at other schools, and $14 general admission.

For more information, call the Theatre Box Office at 8-2216. Purchase tickets on-line at http://www.csufresno.edu/Theatre.