The originally white-paper stage backdrop turns black as Chinese ink drips over it. Berenger's friend, Jean, gradually stoops and then crouches on the floor while shouting and struggling hysterically.

As his white clothes become black when he rolls on the ink-covered floor, Jean changes into a rhinoceros.

This is a scene in Rhinoceros, a play of French absurdist playwright Eugene Ionesco performed in Beijing between June 15 and 20.

In the play, people in a French city begin to argue over a rhinoceros running into the street, and then they themselves change into rhinoceroses in succession. Berenger, who keeps a man's shape, keeps crying, "I'm the last man! I won't surrender!"

Based on Ionesco's experience and feelings in Romania before World War II and pointing to the rampant virus of Fascism, the play made its world debut in Germany in 1959.

Named as the special drama consultant of The Year of France in China by the French government, director Ning Chunyan returned to her alma mater -- Communication University of China (CUC) -- after studying in France for 15 years. She directed the play with a cast of acting major students of 2002 class in CUC, making it premiere in China.

Ning said she wanted to convey the tragedy of the human alienation through blind assimilation.

"For the entire human race, (the play) has eternal significance that good assimilation can lead to progress whereas blind assimilation could lead to tragedy," she said.

Born in France, absurd theater was one of the most influential genres of Western plays after WWII. Affected by existentialism, absurd theater tries to show that human existence is absurd and meaningless, with no story lines, no real-life characters and no drama conflicts on the stage.

The two-and-half-hour Rhinoceros was full of rapid and meaningless conversations and motions of the characters and fraught with anxiety and panic.

The director represented absurdity by abstract costumes and stagecraft.

The backdrop and floor were covered by unique Xuan paper, a type good for traditional Chinese painting and calligraphy; the costumes were made of paper-like non-woven filter cloth; and the characters' faces were crossed by lines and shapes resembling facial make-up in Chinese operas.

Hardly has the ink dripped onto the backdrop when rhinoceroses appear. At last, nearly all the white changes into black and the black spreads onto the floor, extending its territory.

"We use the transition from white to black to represent the process of alienation, and use Xuan paper and prepared Chinese ink- the traditional Chinese artistic symbols -- to recast the postmodern stage language," Ning said.

In addition, Chinese dialects also found their way into this play to suit the Chinese audiences.
 
(Xinhua News Agency June 22, 2005)