Everyone should turn out for Theatre Y’s production of Eugene Ionesco’s play, “Rhinoceros,” which opened Thursday night amid the national conversation on fascism and the consequences of political complacency.
With an intergenerational cast and creative staging, North Lawndale’s Theatre Y brings the timely parable to life as it explores the politics of fear and personal responsibility, Theatre Y Co-founder and Artistic Director Melissa Lorraine said. It opened just days after John Kelly, the Trump White House’s longest-serving chief of staff, publicly said he believed that Donald Trump, who is running for a second term in office, is a fascist — a theme his opponent Kamala Harris is now rallying behind.
“Rhinoceros allows you to explore the absurdity of what it means to be an American today,” Lorraine said.
As the upcoming, historic presidential election looms with the future of democracy in question for many, “’Rhinoceros’ serves as an examination of unchecked groupthink and the allure of ideological certainty,” Lorraine wrote in her description of the play.
The play, she added, is really about how a society becomes fascist and the difficulties of being uncommon in a society that is tipping in a certain direction of power.
Written in 1959 and set in a small French village, the play centers on a bizarre crisis that starts innocuously as a bump on the forehead and results in an entire village turning into rhinoceroses.
A Romanian playwright, Ionesco moved to France in early childhood witnessing the Nazi occupation of France and how the French went from denouncing the atrocities of the Nazis to sympathizing and cooperating with the Nazis in a very short timeframe, Lorraine said.
Cook County Public Defender Bide Akande takes the stage as Berenger. None of the characters have last names. Originally from a small town in Southern Illinois, Akande has a background in theater and performance in general.
He explained the play’s ability to show the slow creep of fascism and how it sets in.
“The more you see fascism, the more you see ordinary people finding their own justifications and their own ways of going along to get along until you get to where we’re at today,” he told the Austin Weekly News.
He added that in today’s political and social climate, preventing Donald Trump’s re-election will not stop fascism from taking hold.
“There’s a creep that’s happening even in the Democratic Party,” Akande said. “As long as you don’t change the material conditions on the ground for people, then the conditions that lead people to fascism are unchanged. There has to be a resistance against all those things which allow Trump to thrive.”
Why should anyone come out to see the play?
“I think people will be left with a feeling in their gut about how none of us can be passive observers,” Akande said. “Also, coming out for the play supports Theatre Y’s sense of community and the idea of community theater that’s made up of community members catering specifically to the community around and in North Lawndale.”
The set was dressed by North Lawndale’s found-object visual artist Marvin Tate and 10 young apprentices.
Terreon Collins, 23, has two positions with Theatre Y as costume designer and actor.
“I’ve been acting for maybe two years and some change and met Theatre Y in January or February of last year, “Collins said as he worked on costumes. “I play the character of Jean. He’s energetic with a condescending undertone. He’s a very ambitious and rambunctious character.”
Tania Ramirez, Matt Fleming, Howard Raik, Arlene Arnone, Nadia Pillay, Roesha Townsel, Braniah Townsel, Jabari Ellis and understudy Lauren Valice are all part of Theatre Y.
Makoto Yamaguchi provided assistant direction and lighting with lighting support from Henry Muller. Kimberly Sutton took care of sound design with support from James Clayton Bowman.
Steve Stoll took care of technical direction and carpentry, with set design by Marvin Tate and the Theatre Youth Apprentices. Emily Bynum took care of stage management while graphic design was handled by Jimi Geiyer. Production management was provided by Emily Bragg, with technical support from E.R. Emison and Maxwell Gantner.
The show’s opening is also a celebration of Theatre Y’s new home, an old storage building at 3611 W. Cermak, purchased and occupied since January 2023. The building just recently received landmark status from the City of Chicago, according to Lorraine.
The cost to attend the show is to pay whatever you can afford or nothing at all.
Rhinoceros runs from Oct. 24 to Nov. 24, 2024. Show times are 7 p.m. on Thursdays; 3 p.m. and 7 p.m. on Saturdays; and 7 p.m. on Sundays.