Why You Need to Read Eugène Ionesco's “Rhinoceros” to Understand the Trump Era

When I was nine, I played an extra in an amateur performance of Eugène Ionesco's 1959 masterpiece Rhinoceros . As the curtain rose, another boy and I burst onto the stage, chased each other around café tables, and then disappeared.

That was my performance. But since my father was also in the play, I stayed until the end every night. Between performances and rehearsals, I must have seen it at least ten times, I think, and it left a deep and lasting impression on me.

The story is as follows: One day, in a peaceful French village, people suddenly, and without explanation, begin transforming into rhinoceroses. At first, the inhabitants are shocked and scandalized. Something must be done! But almost immediately, they change their minds and, having condemned the rhinoceroses, they too transform into rhinoceroses.

Bérenger, a disheveled civil servant who tends to drink and gets bored, is the only one who resists. At the end of the play, he is literally the last man left, surrounded by rampaging pachyderms who were once his friends, colleagues, and neighbors. “Malheu