Omar Elerian Archives - The Play Podcast

Omar Elerian

by Douglas Schatz | May 12, 2025 | Contributor

Omar Elerian

Omar Elerian is a freelance director, dramaturg and theatre-maker. He was the resident Associate Director at the Bush Theatre in London from 2012 to 2019. His directing credits include an acclaimed production of two Palestinians go dogging at the Royal Court, Arinze Kene’s Misty at the Bush and in the West End, You’re Not Like the Other Girls Chrissy at the Bush, and more recently another Ionesco classic at the Almeida, his one-act play The Chairs.

Podcast Episode(s)

095 - Rhinoceros by Eugène Ionesco

Recommended Play(s)

Omar recommended two Palestinians go dogging by Sami Ibrahim.

095 – Rhinoceros by Eugène Ionesco

by Douglas Schatz | May 12, 2025 | Podcast Episodes

Sopé Dirisu as Berenger for Rhinoceros poster
Almeida Theatre, London,
April 2025
Photo by Andy Gotts

095 – Rhinoceros by Eugène Ionesco

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It is a quiet Sunday morning in the square of a small town in France, when a rumbling sound and loud trumpeting disturbs the peace. The noise heralds the unlikely arrival of a rhinoceros charging through the square. Several minutes later a second rhinoceros thunders past, crushing a cat under its feet. Several onlookers argue about whether it was the same beast as before, and whether it had one horn or two, while others who did not see it do not believe the reports of its existence at all. The town is soon gripped by an epidemic of “rhinoceritis”, where the human population transform into rhinoceros themselves.

This is Eugène Ionesco’s absurdist satire, Rhinoceros. Written in French in 1959, the play’s surreal scenario was conceived as a metaphor for support for the rise of fascism in Europe between the two world wars, and for conformism more generally. The play Rhinoceros was first performed in an English translation on BBC Radio in August 1959, before its first stage productions in Dusseldorf later that year, and then at the Odeon in Paris 1960. In April 1960, the play was performed at the Royal Court Theatre in London under the direction of Orson Welles, with Laurence Olivier as Bérenger, the everyman character who becomes the last human being to resist joining the rhinoceros herd. The Royal Court Theatre revived the play in 2007 with Benedict Cumberbatch as Bérenger, and as we record this episode an imaginative new adaptation of the play is playing at the Almeida theatre here in London. I’m delighted to be joined to review Ionesco’s classic by the show’s translator and director, Omar Elerian.

Omar Elerian

Recommended Play

Omar recommended two Palestinians go dogging by Sami Ibrahim.

We have footnotes for this episode …

The Footnotes that accompany our episode on Eugène Ionesco’s absurdist satire, Rhinoceros include observations on the limits of logic as outlined by the character of the logician in the play, and the process and reasoning that people go through in choosing to join the herd.

Footnotes for Patrons

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115 – The Dance of Death by August Strindberg

Oct 6, 2026 | Podcast Episodes

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August Strindberg’s The Dance of Death is set in a remote army base on the coast of Sweden, where an army captain and his wife are trapped together in an unhappy marriage. The captain, bitter at his lack of promotion, and his wife, frustrated at having been forced to give up her career as an actress, occupy their empty hours tearing into each other in a brutal dance of mutual cruelty.

Strindberg’s scorching portrait of marital strife was written in 1900, but has had a lasting influence. Arthur Miller dubbed Strindberg, “the mad inventor of modern theatre”, and echoes of his unflinching dissection of marital discord can be seen in the plays of Edward Albee, Tennessee Williams, Eugene O’Neill, and John Osborne.

Sir Richard Eyre adapted and directed a wonderful production of Dance of Death at the Orange Tree Theatre in Richmond upon Thames earlier this year, and I am delighted that Sir Richard joins me in this episode to guide us through Strindberg’s blistering onslaught on marriage.

114 – Love’s Labour’s Lost by William Shakespeare

Sep 22, 2026 | Podcast Episodes

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William Shakespeare’s Love’s Labour’s Lost is described on the title page in the first publication of its text in 1598 as “A Pleasant Conceited Comedie.” I imagine that the epithets were intended to highlight the play’s courtly aesthetic, its frothy merry-go-round of courtship, and above all perhaps, its ostentatiously intricate word play. For it is a play rich in the love and perils of language.

I am joined to assay Shakespeare’s conceited comedy by the Artistic Director of the Orange Tree Theatre in Richmond upon Thames, Tom Littler. In the summer of 2026 Tom adapted and directed a magical double bill of Shakespeare, producing Love’s Labour’s Lost and Much Ado About Nothing in repertory, and staging them both ‘en plein air’.

113 – Arcadia by Tom Stoppard

Aug 24, 2026 | Podcast Episodes

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Tom Stoppard’s 1993 play, Arcadia, is viewed by many as his finest play, renowned for the breadth of its intellectual interrogations and its formal invention. The play is a structural masterpiece of ideas, as well as a teasing detective story, joyous comedy, and emotionally rich exploration of love and loss.

As we record this episode a wonderful new production of Arcadia is playing at the Duke of York’s theatre in London’s West End, following its acclaimed run at the Old Vic theatre earlier this year. I am delighted to share the challenge and the pleasure of exploring Stoppard’s dazzling drama with the director of the new production, Carrie Cracknell.