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Sherman theatre, CardiffManon Steffan Ros has translated Ionesco’s play into Welsh for this technically ambitious and compelling production Eugène Ionesco’s absurdist classic warns that uncritical conformity leads to catastrophe, as one by one the residents of a small French town turn into horned rhinoceroses. Manon Steffan Ros’s Welsh-language adaptation transplants the action to a quiet Welsh village, and her programme note reminds us that the collective noun for a group of rhinoceroses is a crash. Both metaphorically and (muddily) literally, crashes come from all directions in Steffan Donnelly’s astute, lucid staging.As Bérenger, the everyman who resists the transformation, Rhodri Meilir stands apart. Incongruently listless in a world that demands a little too much pep, his is a striking performance of understated physical delicacy, soft human sinews against the leathery roughness of animal skin. As Sian, Bethan Ellis Owen carries the play’s absurdist logic with aplomb; there’s nothing more unreasonable than reason. Continue reading...