Character Clues
Character Analysis
Dialogue
If you ever go on to theater school (trust us, it’s not as glamorous as it sounds), you’ll most likely have a professor who tells you that you can learn a lot about the characters you play by what they say, but sometimes you can learn a lot more about your characters by what other people in the play say about them.
Ionesco knocks this out of the park from the first scene between Berenger and Jean. The dialogue between the two paints a pretty clear picture of our protagonist Berenger right away:
JEAN: You’re in a bad way, my friend.
BERENGER: In a bad way? You think so? (1.1.61-62)
This little exchange—yes, in only a few words!—tells us a whole lot. Like many of the exchanges early in the play, it’s about, you guessed it, Berenger’s drinking. From Jean’s comment we gather that Berenger is perceived by the outside world as a drunk, a slob, and basically a bit of a hot mess. That’s fair enough.
However, we need Berenger’s response to complete the picture. “In a bad way? You think so?” In other words, “That’s CRAP.” It’s as if Berenger has never thought that how he leads his life is in any way bad at all. In fact, he’ll go on to treat his hangover like it’s no big deal. And that’s none too easy when you’ve got throbbing between the ears.
So what do we have from these two simple lines? Berenger seems not to totally realize the perception others have of him. Plus, even if he does, he’s not all that concerned about it. When digging for dialogue that provides insight into character, you don’t always have to look for the grand exchanges where people seem to stop everything to wax poetic for three pages straight. Sometimes, a quick back-and-forth like this one can tell you a whole bundle.
Stage Directions/Character Description
In the old days, before there were magic phones with magic maps on them, people sometimes had to ask for directions to find a place. Often it was snowing and you had to walk uphill both ways.
In those glorious days of yore, there were two very distinct styles of giving directions. You had your straightforward types who would get mathematical with things and say stuff like, “You’re going to head east for two and a quarter miles, make a right on Oak, ride on for another three miles until Maple, and then make a left on Eucalyptus.” Yes, it was before deforestation.
On the other side of things, you had the storyteller type of direction-giving guy who would say stuff like, “You’ll see an old tree that looks like a witch—it’s the one that got hit by lighting and burned back in aught-one. When you see that tree, count to about twelve and then make a right. After that, keep an eye out for the house made of gingerbread and children’s toes and…”
You get the idea.
Well, stage directions and character descriptions roughly fall into the same categories. Some playwrights like to create a bit of mystery or leave room for the director’s (or reader’s) imagination, but others just like to tell you how you'd better picture that scene. Ionesco can do both at times, but when it comes to setting up his two main characters in Rhinoceros he doesn’t mess around:
JEAN is fastidiously dressed: brown suit, red tie, stiff collar, brown hat. He has a reddish face. His shoes are yellow and well polished. BERENGER is unshaven and hatless, with unkempt hair and creased clothes; everything about him indicates negligence. He seems weary, half-asleep; from time to time he yawns. (1.1.24-29)
Directors, actors, and designers can take Ionesco’s description and put their own spin and interpretation on it, but he gives you a very clear jumping-off point, and he makes it known early on how he sees these two characters. And you ought to too.
Action
“Actions speak louder than words,” the old saying goes. It can be true in life, and it’s almost always true in plays. A character can talk and talk about his or her beliefs and feelings, but in the end, a character’s actions are ultimately going to tell us what they’re all about.
One of the best examples of using action to clue us in on character comes with Jean. All we hear about in the first scene from Jean is how Berenger needs to clean up his act. Usually when Jean points out what Berenger needs to change, he’s quick to point out that he, Jean, has already accomplished this. It’s basically, “you need to act like me, dress like me, and do the things I do.” Yeah, only a drunk would put up with a friend like that.
Hearing such things from a man like Jean, the audience might come away believing that Jean sees himself as a prime example of what a man should be. You might also get the sense that Jean is quite proud of himself and the position he’s attained in this life. You might even say he feels himself at the pinnacle of humanity.
Don’t always trust people when they’re talking about themselves. In Act 2, Jean rails against humans and, lo and behold, takes the dive into rhinocerosdom. It turns out that Jean might not have been as happy with his lot in life as he led us to believe. At the very least, we learn that Jean is very much a follower and not a leader, as he suggests when speaking to Berenger in the opening scene of the play.