One white-clad bed pokes out catwalk-like from the front of the stage, by a small TV monitor displaying perpetual white noise.  Another low-standing bed lies on the stage to our left; on the right a raised rostrum inside a large metal frame.  Five plastic-wrapped dining chairs fill the stage between, and the three stage walls have gigantic plastic sheeting hung like curtains from the the fly rig.

Zhang Wu’s distinctively avant-garde set design is a felicitous platform for accomplished Mandarin playwright Liao Yimei’s first script, written in 1999, now a cult classic. Her script is at first very wordy with mainly static visual elements such as leading love-interest/monomaniacal obsession Ming Ming as she first appears, seated and blindfolded, as protagonist Ma Lu, an earnest and sensitive Rhinoceros keeper at the local zoo, imparts a verbose diatribe of passionate declarations and cerebral philosophising.

Meng Jinghui, reportedly a major patriarchal figure in the Chinese avant-garde theatre world, has directed a remarkably elaborate, verbally effusive work distinguished by its poetic testimony and increasing visual intensity. Focusing on the young would-be couple’s frustrating tragic-comic fable, Ma Lu’s hapless wooing of Ming Ming echoes the pathetic unrequited devotion of Pip in Great Expectations, but the comparison ends with Ming in turn becoming hopelessly obsessed with her contemptible, abusive lover.

Simultaneously, the play showcases modern ‘westernised’ Chinese youth culture, referred to by one incidental character as ‘generation AY, for Angry Youth’, exploring the plethora of messages aimed at them through television and the internet.  This often comedic examination of cultural dos and don’ts juxtaposes the fervent melodrama, resulting in a richly textured theatrical product. 

The supporting cast includes four vaguely archetypal young men – the pretty-boy in the snappy grey suit, the lanky hippie, the waggish beatnik and the nerdish bespectacled toothbrush salesman, Toothbrush (the only one who’s name I managed to get).  The two young female supports are similarly contrasting with one quite bright and bubbly, the other more stately and saturnine. For reasons I can only guess at, the actors are not credited in the programme. 

The subtitles projected on both sides of the stage are an obvious necessity for non-Mandarin speakers.  There are occasional typos and at times they appear out of synch with the dialogue, plus there are scenes when it’s difficult to watch the action and read the lines at the same time.  I estimate I missed up to half the words, though there are numerous instances of repetition, particularly as Ma Lu reverently declares his incessant love for Ming Ming and his enduring respect for Tula, the black African rhino in his charge. 

Sound designer Yan Guihe carries the juxtaposition concept through with an eclectic score that includes classical, heavy industrial, Chinese folk and pop songs (capably sung and harmonised by the cast), and one or two Western jazz standards.   Zhang Jian’s lighting design is also a major force, notably the impressively dynamic shadow-play providing gravitas in key scenes between the leads. 

To a large extent Luo Yuan’s costume design, like the production design overall, is a colourless palette of blacks, whites and greys, the consistent exception being Ming Ming whose respective bright hues pull our focus to her along with Ma Lu’s.  And if Wu’s set seems decidedly abstract to begin with, the transformation it undergoes as the story plays out is surprising and severe. 

I find Rhinoceros In Love to be a befitting initiation into Chinese theatre of this stylised, cerebral nature.  As engaged as I am, it falls short of emotionally transporting me to any degree, possibly due to the overwhelming production values, if not perhaps a simple cultural divide. 

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