Rhinoceros and Other Plays: Includes: The Leader; The Future Is In Eggs; It Takes All Kinds To Make A World (Books That Changed the World)

By: Eugène Ionesco

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Synopsis: “With outrageous comedy” this classic of Absurdist drama “attacks the most serious subjects: blind conformity and totalitarianism, despair and death” (The New York Times).In Rhinoceros, as in his other plays, Eugene Ionesco startles audiences with a world that invariably erupts in explosive laughter and nightmare anxiety. A rhinoceros suddenly appears in a small town, tramping through its peaceful streets. Soon there are two, then three, until the “movement” is universal. This is not an invasion of wild animals, but a transformation of average citizens into beasts, as they learn to move with the times. As the curtain comes down, only one desperate man remains.Rhinoceros is a commentary on the absurdity of the human condition made tolerable only by self-delusion. It shows us the struggle of the individual to maintain integrity and identity in a world where all others have succumbed to the “beauty” of brute force and mindlessness.