Ionesco's Rhinoceros In South Africa

A crash of rhinoceros is headed to the Courtyard Theatre at DUT campus this weekend for two performances of Eugene Ionesco's Rhinoceros on Friday 25 and Saturday 26 October.

This year Kwasha! Theatre gives their own contemporary interpretation of this thought-provoking tale. Already known for their mastery of physical theatre comedy, the company will combine different registers to bring this metaphor to life, exploring the tragic situation of human politics through the use of fantastical images.

We have seen a strange and unprecedent phenomenon this year, that has been happening to the young Kwasha! Theatre Company. It appears that each of the company's member has been slowly transforming into gigantic grey beasts that look like what we know as rhinos Each of them, except one.

Rhinoceros (1939) is an emblematic work from the French- Romanian playwright Eugene Ionesco, one of the foremost figures of the French avant-garde theatre and forefather of the Theatre of the Absurd.

The play depicts an imaginary epidemic of "rhinoceritis", a disease that frightens all the inhabitants of a city and soon transforms them into rhinoceroses. A metaphor for the rise of totalitarianism on the eve of the Second World War, it addresses the themes of conformism and resistance to political power.

The Kwasha! Theatre Company is a collaborative project between the Market Theatre Laboratory and The Windybrow Arts Centre. The project aims to support the careers of recent graduates, as well as provide drama classes for youth at the Market Arts Centre in Hillbrow. Each year, six of South Africa's most exciting emerging theatre makers are identified as members of the company and work together to create an exciting programme of new and dynamic theatre pieces.

Kwasha! thrives on making work that is bold and confronts our current socioeconomic environment.

The French Institute of South Africa and the Market Theatre Laboratory, with the support of Mazars, are pleased to present Kwasha! Theatre Company's latest production, Rhinoceros, written by celebrated French-Romanian playwright Eugene Ionesco, and directed by The Theatre Duo. The production is supported by IFAS,the cultural agency of the Embassy of France in South Africa, the French Institute of South Africa; The Market Theatre Foundation, the Durban University of Technology Drama Studies and of course the always proactive, visionary Alliance Francaise de Durban.

Tickets available from Alliance Francaise de Durban atadmin@durban.alliance.org.za / or 031 312 9582