Paul Giamatti, John Turturro, and Tatiana Maslany to star in Ionesco’s RHINOCEROS at the A.R.T., dir. Diane Paulus.
Paul Giamatti, John Turturro, and Tatiana Maslany to star in Ionesco’s RHINOCEROS at the A.R.T., dir. Diane Paulus.
Broadway Legend Joined: 9/20/18
Paul Giamatti, John Turturro, and Tatiana Maslany to star in Ionesco’s RHINOCEROS at the A.R.T., dir. Diane Paulus.#1
Posted: 4/22/26 at 6:19pm
This surely has Broadway aspirations!
John Turturro, Paul Giamatti, and Tatiana Maslany will star in “Rhinoceros” Aug. 12-Sept. 20 at the Loeb Drama Center in Cambridge, directed by A.R.T. artistic director Diane Paulus. The translation is by Derek Prouse, and it was also used in the recent Yale Rep production.
The project was Turturro's idea.
From the Boston Globe:
In “Rhinoceros,” the residents of a community in France inexplicably and inexorably begin to turn into rhinoceroses, one after another. By the end of the play, the only one who has held onto his humanity is a once-indolent alcoholic named Bérenger, who has grown into a fierce defender of human identity. Turturro will play Bérenger in the ART production.
Giamatti will portray Jean, an urbane and seemingly disciplined intellectual who transforms into a violent green rhinoceros. The character is often seen as a scathing appraisal of the French intelligentsia’s herd mentality by Ionesco, a Romanian-French dramatist.
Maslany, meanwhile, will play Daisy, a gentle-spirited typist and Bérenger’s girlfriend, who eventually abandons him and joins the rhinoceroses, drawn to what she sees as their godlike power.
The ART’s “Rhinoceros” will be a new adaptation created by the company, based on a translation by Derek Prouse. During the interview with the Globe, Paulus said the goal was to fashion “a version of the text that has no distancing from the audience.” A production of “Rhinoceros” using the Prouse translation was presented last month at Yale Repertory Theatre.
Paulus has often emphasized political and social engagement during her nearly two decades leading the ART. While the “Rhinoceros” project originated with Turturro, the production is certain to be seen by some as a commentary on President Trump, whose authoritarian leanings have grown in his second term in office, and whose administration is locked in a legal battle with Harvard, where ART is based.
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2026/04/22/arts/rhinoceros-art-john-turturro-paul-giamatti-tatiana-maslany/
Featured Actor Joined: 1/8/24
Paul Giamatti, John Turturro, and Tatiana Maslany to star in Ionesco’s RHINOCEROS at the A.R.T., dir. Diane Paulus.#2
Posted: 4/23/26 at 12:58am
oh god
expect this show to be so woke
youll never sleep again after seeing it
Broadway Legend Joined: 9/27/21
Paul Giamatti, John Turturro, and Tatiana Maslany to star in Ionesco’s RHINOCEROS at the A.R.T., dir. Diane Paulus.#3
Posted: 4/23/26 at 3:17am
wow, any idea when single tickets go on-sale?
Broadway Legend Joined: 11/9/04
Paul Giamatti, John Turturro, and Tatiana Maslany to star in Ionesco’s RHINOCEROS at the A.R.T., dir. Diane Paulus.#4
Posted: 4/23/26 at 6:33am
MezzoDiva47 said: "
oh god
expect this show to be so woke
youll never sleep again after seeing it
"
oh god
expect this poster to say something ridiculous
your eyes will roll out of your head after seeing it
Paul Giamatti, John Turturro, and Tatiana Maslany to star in Ionesco’s RHINOCEROS at the A.R.T., dir. Diane Paulus.#5
Posted: 4/23/26 at 10:59am
The production at Yale Rep used an adaptation by Frank Galati, not sure if this will be used by Paulus and co. I didn’t love the adaptation (lots of what felt like extraneous topical jokes to update the play) but I’m not familiar with the original text so who knows. After seeing it there’s definitely some overlap with the MAGA menace but it also felt like the wrong metaphor… it’s not so much about fascism specifically as about the power of social conformity. You could probably do a version where it’s a takeover by “woke” rhinos that would delight the poster commenting above (and the former leader of Hungary).
We’re nearly a year and half into Trump’s second term, where are the new plays about ICE, governmental corruption and incompetence, intimidation and muzzling of the press, attacks on Trans rights, etc.? Why this straining for an appropriate metaphor when new works could be produced?
Paul Giamatti, John Turturro, and Tatiana Maslany to star in Ionesco’s RHINOCEROS at the A.R.T., dir. Diane Paulus.#6
Posted: 4/23/26 at 11:20am
sinister teashop said: "After seeing it there’s definitely some overlap with the MAGA menace but it also felt like the wrong metaphor… it’s not so much about fascism specifically as about the power of social conformity."
Rhinoceros was literally conceived in reaction to Hitler:
“I first thought of the rhinoceros image during the war (World War II), as I watched Romanian statesmen and politicians and later French intellectuals accommodate themselves to Hitler’s way of thinking,” Ionesco said in a 1985 interview. “They might say something like, ‘Well, of course the Nazis are terrible, terrible people, but you know, you must credit them with their good points."
Reducing it apolitically to "the power of social conformity" is like saying Cabaret is just about the tribulations of working in the performing arts.
Paul Giamatti, John Turturro, and Tatiana Maslany to star in Ionesco’s RHINOCEROS at the A.R.T., dir. Diane Paulus.#7
Posted: 4/23/26 at 11:37am
Yes, I am aware that the play was a response to fascism. Where are the new American plays about the current American fascism?
Paul Giamatti, John Turturro, and Tatiana Maslany to star in Ionesco’s RHINOCEROS at the A.R.T., dir. Diane Paulus.#8
Posted: 4/23/26 at 12:29pm
BoringBoredBoard40 said: "wow, any idea when single tickets go on-sale?"
Subscription pre-sales started today and are public on May 21 so definitely not before then and they probably want to leave some time between that and single tickets on sale. Single tickets usually to go on sale around 2 months ahead of time, so probably around mid June.
edit: June 25
Paul Giamatti, John Turturro, and Tatiana Maslany to star in Ionesco’s RHINOCEROS at the A.R.T., dir. Diane Paulus.#9
Posted: 4/23/26 at 12:51pm
sinister teashop said: "… it’s not so much about fascism specifically as about the power of social conformity...."
I love this, though of course it was inspired by Hitler’s blind followers.
What a cast!!
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