The plays of Eugene Ionesco (1909-1994), the Romanian-born French playwright associated with the Theatre of the Absurd, are not typical East End theatrical fare. So it’s refreshing that Vincent Cinque, an actor and director based in Brooklyn, is directing, and will co-produce with Josh Gladstone, Ionesco’s “Rhinoceros,” to be performed at LTV Studios on Saturday at 7:30 p.m.
Written in 1959, the play, a presentation of the Playwrights’ Theatre of East Hampton, is set in a provincial European town whose inhabitants begin to turn, one by one, into rhinoceroses, until at the end only one man, Berenger, a depressed alcoholic, resists the transformation.
While the premise of people turning into beasts is on one level absurdly comical, the theme refers in part to the rapid rise of fascism in the playwright’s native country during the 1930s. As a young writer, Ionesco saw personally how the Iron Guard, a fascist movement, attracted people from all walks of life.
Sound familiar? As Andrew Moss writes in Hollywood Progressive, “Sixty-five years later, ‘Rhinoceros’ remains a play for our time — perhaps more so than ever — serving as both a warning and a goad to a nation in political crisis.”
Mr. Cinque, who has a B.F.A. in drama and producing from N.Y.U.’s Tisch School of the Arts, served as a leading player and resident director of Cynthia von Buhler’s Immersive Theater Company Speakeasy Dollhouse. He has appeared in productions at Hampton Theatre Company, Guild Hall, the Roundtable Theater Company in Fair Lawn, N.J., and the Insomnium Theatre Company in New York City.
The cast includes Mr. Cinque as Berenger and, in other roles, Kane Brown, Charlie Reid, Brian Esposito, Josh Gladstone, Lydia Franco Hodges, Kate Mueth, John Kroft, Daniela Mastropietro, Carly Cooper, and Cameron Eastland.
Tickets are $15 in advance, $20 at the door, $35 for table seating with a drink, and $10 for students with a valid ID.
LTV will pivot from raging beasts to folk music on Sunday afternoon at 2, when its East End Underground Live Concert Series will present “Folkie Fest: The Power of Song.” Produced by Jody Gambino, an artist, filmmaker, and musician who grew up in East Hampton, the performers include Gregory John Smith, the Hootenannies, Silas Jones, Rorie Kelly, and Hank Stone.
Tickets are $15 in advance, $20 at the door.
