Theater companies attempting the plays of the great absurdist Eugène Ionesco invariably run into the perplexing problem of how to handle some of the lengthy, rambling, and arguably tedious stretches of dialog that intermingle freely with brilliant bursts of writing that are at once comic and disturbing commentary on the human condition. That's the dilemma that the Onomatopoeia Theatre Company is wrestling with in its production of Ionesco's Rhinoceros, now at the Gene Frankel Theatre.

Rhinoceros, dating from 1959, can be viewed as a satirical jab at fascism, a dig at bureaucratic dehumanization, or simply a nod to the lure of a life free from responsibilities. Over the course of its three acts, the inhabitants of a town in France turn into rhinoceroses. In the end, only one man remains to represent all of humanity.

There are many moments of antic madness within the play, and it is these that director Thomas R. Gordon and the mostly young cast do their best at capturing. The most famous of these is the "transformation" scene, in which one of the characters, Jean, metamorphoses into a rhino before our very eyes. Here actor Alex Levitt does himself proud through the physicality of the role (one that garnered a Tony Award for Zero Mostel in the original Broadway production), and Levitt's bombastic portrayal of Jean earlier in the play works to his advantage. Also splendid at capturing just the right tone of slapstick humor is Julia Register as Mrs. Boeuf, a woman who has just discovered her husband has become a rhino. Rather than taking up a suggestion that she has legitimate grounds for divorce, she chooses to follow her heart and stand by her beast.

The production is well served, too, by the off-stage sounds of stampeding rhinos and the use of shadow puppets of the animals as seen through the window of an apartment, where the protagonist, Berenger, is holed up. Berenger is a complicated character, an Everyman and very much a reluctant spokesperson for the human race. He worries incessantly that he, too, might be about to transform, and he hides behind a fog of alcohol, aimed at keeping the panic at bay. Adam G. Brooks does a good job of capturing Berenger's timidity and dreaminess, but he lacks the gravitas needed to depict the character's underlying and growing sense of dread and desperation that is necessary to balance the play's equal sense of ridiculousness.

Ionesco habitually incorporates tangential wanderings into examining the difficulty we humans have in communicating with each other, the sometimes meaninglessness of language, the mental gymnastics of philosophers and logicians, and the pointlessness of many of our day-to-day activities. These meanderings, while intellectually interesting, do tend to drag things down, and this production has not found a way to keep the pace from slowing to a crawl over the course of the two-and-a-half hour evening.

Rhinoceros
Through April 25
Gene Frankel Theatre, 24 Bond Street between LaFayette and Bowery
Tickets online and current Performance Schedule: BrownPaperTickets