Rhinoceros opens on the Barnes Stage with the kind of energy and interaction that makes the absurd feel strangely familiar. Eugène Ionesco’s classic is known for its frenetic chaos, but this CSUSB Department of Theatre Arts production, directed by Terry Donovan Smith, chooses a different path. The tension builds steadily, the comedy comes from character rather than slapstick, and the message sits just beneath the surface, exclusive to an audience who is willing to dig a little for it. It is a thoughtful approach that gives the play the room it needs to breathe and gives the cast a chance to stretch into material that is both strange and deeply human.
The story follows Berenger, an ordinary man living an ordinary life in an ordinary small town that begins to change in extraordinary ways. One by one, the townspeople start transforming into rhinoceroses. The play is known for its usage as a metaphor for the rise of fascism and mob mentality. The costumes have hints of the late fifties, the music ranges from sixties pop to nineties nostalgia, to Irish rockand the set looks like a pop-up book come to life. It feels both familiar and displaced, which suits the material perfectly.
Before the show, Terry Donovan Smith spoke about the department’s decision to choose Rhinoceros for the fall season, noting that they rotate styles to expose students to a wide range of theatrical forms. He added that Theatre of the Absurd had not been staged in a long time, and that his own background made the play a natural fit. He knows the text well, having studied twentieth century European drama in his doctoral work and directed the play decades ago at another institution. Still, this production is not a recreation of earlier ideas. It is shaped by careful choices that focus on allowing the audience to exercise their imagination rather than simply witness a spectacle.
One of the most effective of those choices is the decision not to show the rhinoceroses en masse. In some productions, the stage fills with masks, heads, or costumed performers. It often becomes camp that distracts from the comedy of the play. Here, the audience hears the creatures but almost never sees them. The stomping, the snorting, the sense of something enormous just offstage creates far more tension than any costume or make up could. Donovan Smith likened this approach to films where you see the human reactions long before you see the creature itself. It is a simple technique that becomes one of the production’s most powerful tools.
The cast works the tension with polished deftness, led by Jaren Cochran as Berenger. Berenger is an easy character to flatten into a caricature, but Cochran gives him shape and weight. He begins the play with a “laissez-faire” attitude and a world-weary tiredness of someone who moves through life without urgency. As the world shifts, that calm exterior begins to crack. Cochran’s performance captures that shift with precision. His anxiety builds gradually, scene by scene, until the earlier indifference has curled into something shaky and raw. It never feels forced. Instead, the performance grows naturally out of the circumstances unfolding around him. By the time Berenger is forced to confront what is happening to the people he cares about, Cochran grounds the moment with vulnerability rather than theatrics.
Jean, played by Ev Phillips, brings a different sort of challenge to the stage, and Phillips meets it head on. Jean begins the play as a sharply critical presence, needling Berenger with the kind of superiority that is both irritating and entertaining. Phillips leans into that with just the right level of precision. The transformation arc that follows, which unfolds over a tight series of short appearances, demands physical and emotional shifts that escalate quickly. Phillips makes those shifts visible without overplaying them, creating a sense of momentum that matches the rising tension of the play. By the time the character reaches the height of that transformation, the performance feels fully earned.
Kylie Currie brings a steady warmth to Daisy that gives the play some of its emotional grounding. Daisy enters as a calm, level-headed counterpoint to the rising chaos, and Currie plays her with a gentle presence that stands out among the frantic anxiety of the town. What makes her performance memorable is not a single dramatic moment, but the small cues she weaves throughout. There is a subtle emotional pressure in her responses and a quiet intensity in the final act that adds significant weight without revealing anything outright. Currie allows the character’s internal struggle to take shape through controlled physical and tonal shifts, making Daisy one of the most compelling parts of the production.
The design team matches the actors’ work with choices that enhance the absurd without overwhelming it. The set, with its angled lines and stylized shapes, carries a surreal, exaggerated quality that makes the world feel slightly off balance. It resembles a comic-strip pulled into three dimensions, which keeps the audience aware that reality is bending without losing the human story underneath. The lighting tightens the world as the play progresses, moving from wide open brightness to narrower, more intimate framing that mirrors Berenger’s growing isolation.
The cast’s work reflects the director’s influence in clear and grounded ways, especially in the areas he spoke about during our conversation. Donovan Smith discussed how his years as a professional actor shaped his approach to directing, saying that “knowing how to talk to an actor, knowing how to cast an actor is difficult,” and that each performer “needs a different kind of experience with the director.” He emphasized that when he gives a note, it is not only about the single moment but about how an actor might carry that insight into future work. Those ideas show up onstage in the clarity and intentionality of the student performances. Nothing feels mechanical or forced. The actors seem to be working from a place of understanding rather than imitation, which aligns with his belief in direction as guidance rather than correction.
Donovan Smith also spoke about resisting the temptation to force obvious modern political parallels. While the play’s history is tied directly to the rise of fascism in mid century Europe, he explained that “people should be able to interpret theatre,” adding that when productions push too directly into contemporary politics, audiences “can’t see the more universal issues of how politics can go wrong.” This production carries that idea forward. The message is present but not written in bold. The play lets the audience make the connections themselves, which makes the experience more personal and more resonant.
CSUSB’s Department of Theatre Arts production of Rhinoceros becomes a smart, engaging, and quietly powerful production. The cast leans into the absurdity without losing the emotional core, and the director’s vision gives the students a steady foundation to explore a difficult text. The choice to rely on sound, suggestion, and reaction rather than spectacle keeps the play grounded. The performances are thoughtful, the design is inventive, and the themes land with a gentle but unmistakable clarity. It is a production that understands its audience, and will stay with you long after you leave the theater.
