Ionesco’s iconic satire on mindlessness and conformity is given its first major UK revival since its Royal Court premiere in 1960, which was directed by Orson Welles starring Laurence Olivier.
It happens inexplicably: One by one, a man's friends and neighbors turn into rhinoceroses, reducing the town to a perilous wasteland. In this brilliant restaging of Eugène Ionesco's absurdist allegory Rhinoceros, loneliness and horror consume the individual who resists a popular movement in which civilians succumb to the collective in its most monstrous, destructive form. Spare, physical, and haunting, celebrated French director Emmanuel Demarcy—Mota's internationally acclaimed staging teases out the archetypal quality of this classic work, whose fierce indictment of 20th-century totalitarianism retains its sting amid today's ideological climate.

Ionesco’s iconic satire on mindlessness and conformity is given its first major UK revival since its Royal Court premiere in 1960, which was directed by Orson Welles starring Laurence Olivier.
It happens inexplicably: One by one, a man's friends and neighbors turn into rhinoceroses, reducing the town to a perilous wasteland. In this brilliant restaging of Eugène Ionesco's absurdist allegory Rhinoceros, loneliness and horror consume the individual who resists a popular movement in which civilians succumb to the collective in its most monstrous, destructive form. Spare, physical, and haunting, celebrated French director Emmanuel Demarcy—Mota's internationally acclaimed staging teases out the archetypal quality of this classic work, whose fierce indictment of 20th-century totalitarianism retains its sting amid today's ideological climate.

Ionesco’s iconic satire on mindlessness and conformity is given its first major UK revival since its Royal Court premiere in 1960, which was directed by Orson Welles starring Laurence Olivier.
It happens inexplicably: One by one, a man's friends and neighbors turn into rhinoceroses, reducing the town to a perilous wasteland. In this brilliant restaging of Eugène Ionesco's absurdist allegory Rhinoceros, loneliness and horror consume the individual who resists a popular movement in which civilians succumb to the collective in its most monstrous, destructive form. Spare, physical, and haunting, celebrated French director Emmanuel Demarcy—Mota's internationally acclaimed staging teases out the archetypal quality of this classic work, whose fierce indictment of 20th-century totalitarianism retains its sting amid today's ideological climate.

Macbett (1972) is Eugène Ionesco's satire on Shakespeare's Macbeth.

Two generals, Macbett and Banco, put down a rebellion. In payment for their heroic service, Archduke Duncan promises to bestow on them land, titles and cash, but he reneges on the deal. Encouraged by the seductive Lady Duncan, Macbett plots to assassinate the Archduke and crown himself King. He tries to maintain his tenuous grip on the throne through a vicious cycle of murder and bloodshed. Meanwhile, he is haunted by the ghosts of his victims and discovers that his new wife is not all that she seems.

Written during the Cold War, Ionesco's Macbett remoulds Shakespeare's Macbeth into a comic tale of ambition, corruption, cowardice and excess, creating a tragic farce which takes human folly to its wildest extremes. Innovations include a long conversation between the thanes of Glamiss and Candor, the characters a lemonade seller and butterfly hunter, and the revelation that the rightful heir to the throne is a worse tyrant than Macbett ever was.