Rhinoceros, Eugène Ionesco’s frightening allegory on the death of humanism in the face of Nazi Germany’s rise, graces the Cultural Centre’s Grand Auditorium this fortnight as part of Macau’s 20^th annual Arts Festival.

Professional Macanese troupe Theatre Farmers takes on Rhinoceros, a vast Absurdist work written in the wake of the Second World War. Ionesco’s story places alcoholic protagonist Bérenger at the centre of an epidemic in a small French town, in which residents turn one by one into rhinos. Anti-hero Bérenger is the only one not to transform, leaving him with the task of saving humanity.

The bizarre metamorphoses will get some laughs, but – as with most things about Nazis – it’s not a comfortable play to watch. The rhinos are, of course, a metaphor for the rapid conversion of ranks of ‘good’ people to the so-called ‘Master Race’, following Germany’s occupation of France in 1940.

At first savage and misanthropic, the animals become progressively beautiful, until we’re forced to recognise just how seductive Hitler’s Fascist sect might have been. As the town’s citizens passively allow the rhinos to run wild, Rhinoceros serves as a stark reminder of an old adage: “All that is necessary for evil to succeed is that good men do nothing.”

Rhinoceros’ appearance in Macau follows last week’s production of Sunrise, one of China’s first existential plays. When the world is turned on its head, human nature is called into question. Like fellow Absurdist playwrights Beckett, Sartre and the late, great Mr Pinter, Ionesco’s response to the devastation he lived through was to construct a world in which logic is overshadowed by nonsense.

In Cantonese, with English, Portuguese and Chinese surtitles.