September 23rd - Houston Theater kicks off with Absurdist Rhinos, 9/11 Kindness, and a Classic Musical

Well, for anybody that doesn't know, what is this show about? What's the story of this one?

Well, the simple premise is that you discover a town where one by one, slowly, first they see some rhinoceros running through the street, and then it becomes clear that People, the citizens, are turning into rhinoceroses themselves.

There is a character named Berenger, who is our anti-hero hero, who is basically fighting against this and watching in a way helplessly while not only his co-workers and strangers, but his closest friends become rhinoceroses until he is left as perhaps the last human on the planet.

It's hilarious.

Yeah, it sounds like a laugh a minute riot fest right now.

No, just kidding.

It's a classic of surrealistic theater and absurd and has a lot to say.

But why bring it back? I mean, you had it in 2017.

It was a hit.

So why now? Why again? Why Rhino it again?

It was something that just sort of shot out of my brain when discussing with Jason Nodler, my co-artistic director, what shows we were considering for this current season.

It wasn't even like something we debated.

It just sort of was like, well, we need to do Rhinoceros again.

It's been about 10 years.

When we did it in 2017, obviously there had been a recent political shift in our country.

I know there was an article that came out last year about the plays that we should be doing right now.

And Rhinoceros was on that list, along with the designated mourner and a few others.

I will say that for me personally, there is a connection to the political landscape in our country and some of the things that I personally feel where I'm witnessing things that seemed completely unacceptable or unimaginable to me that are just sort of becoming, you know, the regular routine of the world.

And myself feeling kind of like I'm letting it just happen.

What do I do? What do I do with something that seems so impossible? And now we're just sort of all like, oh, well, that's just how it is.

So that would be my own personal sort of access to it.

But I think Inesco himself has said it isn't just about fascism and it isn't just about a political statement.

If anything, he'll argue this play is apolitical and that it really is about the individual versus groupthink versus any sort of ideologue or dogma or mass hysteria.

And you can transfer that to many different things.

You could talk about technology right now and what's happening with people and how AI or just the way we are now married to our phones and how it's maybe dehumanizing us.

Well, for anybody that doesn't know, what is this show about? What's the story of this one?

Well, the simple premise is that you discover a town where one by one, slowly, first they see some rhinoceros running through the street, and then it becomes clear that People, the citizens, are turning into rhinoceroses themselves.

There is a character named Berenger, who is our anti-hero hero, who is basically fighting against this and watching in a way helplessly while not only his co-workers and strangers, but his closest friends become rhinoceroses until he is left as perhaps the last human on the planet.

It's hilarious.

Yeah, it sounds like a laugh a minute riot fest right now.

No, just kidding.

It's a classic of surrealistic theater and absurd and has a lot to say.

But why bring it back? I mean, you had it in 2017.

It was a hit.

So why now? Why again? Why Rhino it again?

It was something that just sort of shot out of my brain when discussing with Jason Nodler, my co-artistic director, what shows we were considering for this current season.

It wasn't even like something we debated.

It just sort of was like, well, we need to do Rhinoceros again.

It's been about 10 years.

When we did it in 2017, obviously there had been a recent political shift in our country.

I know there was an article that came out last year about the plays that we should be doing right now.

And Rhinoceros was on that list, along with the designated mourner and a few others.

I will say that for me personally, there is a connection to the political landscape in our country and some of the things that I personally feel where I'm witnessing things that seemed completely unacceptable or unimaginable to me that are just sort of becoming, you know, the regular routine of the world.

And myself feeling kind of like I'm letting it just happen.

What do I do? What do I do with something that seems so impossible? And now we're just sort of all like, oh, well, that's just how it is.

So that would be my own personal sort of access to it.

But I think Inesco himself has said it isn't just about fascism and it isn't just about a political statement.

If anything, he'll argue this play is apolitical and that it really is about the individual versus groupthink versus any sort of ideologue or dogma or mass hysteria.

And you can transfer that to many different things.

You could talk about technology right now and what's happening with people and how AI or just the way we are now married to our phones and how it's maybe dehumanizing us.