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Ionesco's forgotten text, “Rhinoceros”. A short-story that might surprise. And it is, indeed, a short-story.
The text was published in 1957, a few months before the famous play of the same title. While the play presents several characters, in the short story there is only one person named Béranger, who tells the story of how his colleagues and friends transformed gradually into rhinoceroses.
“Here's how we became Nazis,” wrote the German press after the performance's première in Düsseldorf. Later Jean-Louis Barrault evoked a “burlesque vision” and called it “a junction between the Marx brothers and Kafka”. Although the success of the play overwhelmed the reception of the short story, Ionesco's clairvoyant and despairing imagination fills in the short story and through the method of reductio ad absurdum demonstrates the evolution of totalitarianism.
“At first I was enthralled by the lurid brevity of the text and we refused any kind of reduction 'adaptation' and decided to put on stage the short story in its full length. This first version of the performance has been played approximately 150 times all over the world,” said actor and director Jean-Marie Sirgue. 
Jean-Marie Sirgue
After his studies at the Centre of Dramatic Arts in Tours (1974-76) he participated in several theatrical, pantomime, dance, and speech-technique trainings. He was a full-time actor of Théâtre du Pratos in Tours. In 1982 he established Théâtre de la Fronde. He has participated in productions directed by J.-L. Dumont, Eric Krüger, Virgil Tănase and Guy Cambreleng. 

"Jean-Marie Sirgue is first of all an actor and a director, but his work has led him also to writing plays, short stories, and adaptation of miscellaneous works. He has particpated in making films and writes TV-scripts for the ‘Blocks-notes’ programme on the FR3 Tours channel.”
"...an exquisite theatrical talent, who can provoke laughter and anxiety at the same time. As if we were waiting to see his horns grow...”