Singapore spin on Ionesco’s classic play Rhinoceros to travel to Edinburgh Fringe

SINGAPORE – Romanian-French playwright Eugene Ionesco is said to have written his 1959 absurdist classic Rhinoceros in response to the rise of fascism in the 20th century.

But like many others, Singapore playwright Edward Eng has found in it a more evergreen warning – against conformism and groupthink, dangers still relevant to modern, developed societies.

His new play, Do Rhinos Feel Their Horns?, transports the French satire about inhabitants of a small town transforming into rhinos to Singapore.

Two friends making a radio play imagine a “rhinoceritis epidemic” in the 1980s, in the process re-evaluating the sacrifices they have made in their lives to fit in.

The violent comedy plays at Centre 42 in Waterloo Street from Thursday to Sunday before travelling to the annual Edinburgh Fringe in August. The box-office grosses from the show will go towards supporting the Edinburgh staging.

Eng, 29, says: “Rhinoceros is a common play to study for students in some countries and we found straightaway that it had a very interesting conceit. But it has gotten a bit predictable and there was a disconnect because fascism is not really on the rise in the same way anymore.”

He decided to locate the rhino disease to 1980s Singapore instead after talking to older friends who spoke of a simpler, more optimistic time.

“People felt that if they abided by the social contract, they would receive the rewards of capitalism,” Eng says. “We are now more knowledgeable about the mundanity or the dreariness of having to fulfil our end of the contract. We are more clear-eyed now.”

Do Rhinos Feel Their Horns? is Gangguan Theatre’s second production, after climate play The Change – also written by Eng – was staged at Cairnhill Arts Centre in December 2022. Gangguan Theatre is a playwright-led collaborative founded by Eng in 2022.

The consultant-by-day says that “gangguan” has been used by his family to mean nuisance or disturbance, a reaction he wants to provoke with his more contrarian, experimental plays.

His collaborator this time is Adeeb Fazah, artistic director of theatre company The Second Breakfast Company, who directs the two-hander starring Shannen Tan and Cheryl Ho. Ho won four awards at the Melbourne Fringe for her one-woman show Getting Home in 2020.

Adeeb says the need for the set to travel means there is a heavy focus on sound to conjure the grunting and stampeding of animals, designed by The Straits Times Life Theatre Awards-nominated sound artist Vick Low.

The 31-year-old director says: “Edward’s writing has a unique, chill vibe, so we have chosen to do it in a more breezy, less theatrical way. The characters can afford to be really relaxed and the two friends just exist, and it resists being about the staging.”

After Eng interjects to say that the rhinos will still be very “theatrical, funny and interesting”, Adeeb adds: “It’s about finding the blend between the absurd rhinoceros-verse and the two friends’ real world.”

Eng and Adeeb had e-mailed venues at the Edinburgh Fringe to get this play accepted at the venerable 76-year-old festival. They have also applied for a National Arts Council grant to support their travel.

Both are eager to go, having had prior experiences with Edinburgh Fringe.

Eng’s friend had staged one of his scripts at the Fringe in his university days, a monologue called Sunbathers about people in crises who always maintain serene facades.

Adeeb, who directed the now-defunct Bhumi Collective’s Last Of Their Generation for Edinburgh Fringe in 2017, says it changed his life.

“That was the moment that made it very clear to me what I wanted to do. It’s an overwhelming sensorial experience where thousands of shows were going on at the same time. It’s simply inspiring.”

Book It/Do Rhinos Feel Their Horns?

Where: Centre 42, 42 Waterloo Street
When: Thursday and Sunday, 7.30pm; Friday and Saturday, 7.30 and 9.30pm
Admission: $31
Info:

str.sg/ioxn