Photo©Anqi Xiong
Photo©YiYang Tan
Photo©YiYang Tan
Photo©YiYang Tan
Photo©YiYang Tan
Photo©Anqi Xiong
Photo©YiYang Tan
Photo©Anqi Xiong
Photo©Anqi Xiong
Photo©Anqi Xiong
Photo©YiYang Tan
Photo©YiYang Tan
Photo©Anqi Xiong
Photo©YiYang Tan
Photo©YiYang Tan
Photo©YiYang Tan
Photo©YiYang Tan
Photo©YiYang Tan
Photo©YiYang Tan
Photo©Anqi Xiong
Photo©YiYang Tan
Photo©Anqi Xiong
Photo©Anqi Xiong
Photo©Anqi Xiong
Photo©Anqi Xiong
Photo©YiYang Tan
Photo©Anqi Xiong
Photo©Anqi Xiong
Photo©YiYang Tan
Photo©Anqi Xiong
Photo©YiYang Tan
Photo©YiYang Tan
Photo©YiYang Tan
Experimental Bilingual Theatre
RHINOCEROS IN LOVE
Produced & Directed by: Huirui Zhang
Translation Consultant & Talkback Guest: Professor Claire Conceison
French Translation: Soline Le Saux
Venue: Mainline Theatre
Show runtime: May 16-17, 2023
Galina (Guanlin) Zhu as Ming Ming
Troye (Kaizhuo) Cao as Ma Lu
Victoria (Yuxin) Dong as Toothbrush
Eugene (Yuzan) Guo as Heizi
Joy (Jingyuan) Qin as Honghong
Yichen Wu as Lili
Summer Mahmud as Daxian
Yilin Guo as the Love Professor
Marie-Sophie Aubé as the Host
Dramaturg: Hwaan Han
Stage Manager: Elsa Di Paola
ASM: Andrea Landaeta
Lighting Designer: Sarah Pattloch & Luisa Pasturel
Costume Designer: Eloise Lu
Set & Prop Designer: Léa-Mirana Metz
Make up artist: Angelina Farias
Photographer: Yiyang Tan & Anqi Xiong
Composer: Kay Meng
Videographer: Jonathan Liu & Evan Chiam
Rehearsal & Costume Assistant: Meijing He
Subtitles Operator: Stella Xu
A multilingual adaptation of the 1999 Chinese cult hit play. An innovative approach of having a mixed-race cast and performed bilingually in both Mandarin and English with French subtitles. Incorporated originally composed music and an original dance choreography.
Detailed program and the list of curated music used in the show can be consulted here.
You can also followed this past production on Instagram @rhinoceros.in.mtl to view selected reels from the production archives.
Synoposis
A "classic" of contemporary Chinese theatre,
Ma Lu is infatuated with Ming Ming, a girl who chews lemon-flavoured gum and smells like photocopiers. But Ming Ming is too preoccupied with chasing after her cold, artist boyfriend. She has no interest in a mediocre, nearsighted rhinoceros keeper who is ready to sacrifice everything for her. But Ma Lu does not plan on giving up…
Is this a story of true love or of dangerous obsession? Is this romance or horror? Watch the show and decide for yourself…
Photo©Anqi Xiong
Photo©Anqi Xiong
Photo©Anqi Xiong
Photo©Anqi Xiong
Photo©Anqi Xiong
Photo©Anqi Xiong
Photo©Anqi Xiong
Photo©Anqi Xiong
Photo©Anqi Xiong
Photo©Anqi Xiong
Photo©YiYang Tan
Photo©YiYang Tan
Photo©Anqi Xiong
Photo©YiYang Tan
Photo©Anqi Xiong
Photo©Anqi Xiong
Photo©Anqi Xiong
Photo©Anqi Xiong
Photo©Anqi Xiong
Photo©Anqi Xiong
Photo©Anqi Xiong
Photo©Anqi Xiong
Photo©Anqi Xiong
Photo©Anqi Xiong
Photo©Anqi Xiong
Photo©YiYang Tan
Photo©YiYang Tan
My first encounter with Rhinoceros in Love was during my first summer in high school. At the time, peers at school started chatting about the show, and watching Rhinoceros in Love had become an avant-garde cultural activity. I was only fifteen-years-old. Prior to that, theatre to me only meant Shakespeare and Beijing Opera. So, when I passed by a poster of Rhinoceros in Love on the bulletin board at 798 Art District in Beijing, I decided to find out what was so intriguing about this “rhino” and set foot in the Beehive Theatre (founded by Meng Jinghui) for the first time.
All I could remember from that initial viewing of Rhinoceros in Love was an image of a woman in a red dress standing on a stage filled with water that had poured from the ceiling. At an age when you don't know how to love, watching the inexhaustible passion and mesmerizing desire played between Ma Lu and Ming Ming was as if sensing heavy raindrops falling onto your body. The sensation makes your body ache and leaves a powerful yet invisible mark.
However, my idea of doing a bilingual version of Rhinoceros in Love did not emerge until last winter when I watched Cyclorama, a bilingual production addressing the linguistic duality and division in Montréal through the history of its theatre. In the final scene of Cyclorama, the two leading actors, Antoine and Laurence, recited the balcony scene in Romeo and Juliet while one was speaking in French and the other was replying in English. I got so emotional hearing the two opposing languages merge together in harmony. The power of love could truly marry two opposite communities to become one.
Although I was moved by the hopeful message at the end of Cyclorama, it left me pondering on another question: what about immigrant communities in our bilingual cityscape? In Montréal or broadly, there is not just a bilingual division but a multilingual estrangement. In Cyclorama, this issue was briefly discussed by Antoine stepping in as an immigrant living in Montréal who had learned acting at an English school.
Following this train of thought, I decided that it would be valuable to bring an Asian story on stage in dialogue with the English and French languages. Rhinoceros in Love was the first play that popped into my head. Not only because it left a memorable mark in my heart but also because it is representative enough that it speaks to the challenge of embracing the painful feeling of angst and isolation in the mist of cultural amnesia and indifference that Chinese youths today continue to face. Especially after the COVID-19 pandemic.
For this particular production, to shed light on more emerging Asian artists is one thing, but more importantly, I want to bring languages together. I have this hope that maybe eventually, bonding languages will lead to bonding different cultural groups together! Therefore, you can expect to see a mix of ethnicity in our cast. I am grateful to everyone who came to audition and helped me realize this vision.
Finally, I want to thank all my theatre mentors and friends who helped me power through the difficult times during the process and made my idea a dream-come-true. This version of Rhinoceros in Love is a fetish dream of Ma Lu, but it is also of mine. I hope in it, you can also be alerted of your deep wonder and desire and start an honest conversation with yourself.
Poster designed by Hwaan Han & Marie-Sophie Aubé
Talkback, (from left to right) Prof. Claire Conceison from MIT, Huirui Zhang and Hwaan Han, by Anqi Xiong, 16 May 2023
Huirui giving notes to Galina and Troye during rehearsal, by Yiyang Tan, 2023
Huirui giving final notes backstage before the opening, by Yiyang Tan, 16 May 2023
Rhino team cheers before the opening, by Yiyang Tan, 16 May 2023