Market Theatre celebrates 30 years and marking this anniversary celebration is a performance of Rhinoceros, written by celebrated French-Romanian playwright Eugène Ionesco, and performed by Kwasha Theatre Company. The play follows a story where an imaginary epidemic called “rhinoceritis”, a disease that devastates all the inhabitants of a city and eventually transforms them into rhinoceroses. The play had its debut in 1959 and is seen as a metaphorical piece that speaks about the pre-war socio-political climate of totalitarianism, conformism and resistance to political power that eventually led to the Second World War.

With a global resurgence of fascism and the far-rightist mentality, Rhinoceros comes to Joburg at a particularly relevant moment fitting into the current discourse in South Africa about xenophobia and probes matters of authoritarianism, false logic, and free will.