Last Saturday, June 13, 2009 I saw the sold out Exit the King with Geoffrey Rush and was realized that I missed absurdist plays very much.
It began with Andrea Martin coming out with card in hand saying “no cellphone” or “texting”. It was great. Ms. Martin’s physical life was so “monkey like” that I wasn’t sure who it was with me in the mezzanine. This is before the house light went out.
Exit the King on the surface is about a King that is dying and his court preparing him for his inevitable death. What Ionesco really presents is commentary about society.
There are six characters each representing different parts of society.
- The Guard: Authority
A puppet just announcing whatever was going on. No matter how ridiculous or inappropriate.
- King Berenger: The Leader
A fop. Old, out of date and completely absorbed in his past accomplishments. All of which are fading away at a rapid pace.
- Queen Marguerite: Intelligentsia
A know it all and unyielding. It’s her way or death. Never comforting and focused on the end result.
- Queen Marie: The Youth
Emotional. Passionate and naive. Has no sense of reality.
- The Doctor: Science
Partnered with the intelligentsia. With nothing to contribute except prognosis.
- Juliette: The People
Overworked, underpaid and too tired to contribute or change society and their social status.
Absurdism is like a weird dream. There is a reason to the madness; you just have to pick it apart. Geoffrey Rush was brilliant to rework this play for a modern audience. It just proves that true art can be timeless.
I didn’t see the other Tony nominated performances but for Best Actor in a Play, but I doubt any of them had the size and presence of Rush. He was HUGE. For those of you that don’t know. Performing an abstract take a lot trial and error and you have to be a brave enough actor to fail miserably in order to find what you’re looking for.
Susan Sarandon and Lauren Ambrose are great talents, but you can tell they had a problem with the theatricality of the piece. I didn’t dislike them, but in the back of my mind I wondered how would the play have been with someone else in the role of Queen Marguerite or Queen Marie. That said I enjoyed seeing Ms. Sarandon onstage and would love to see her again. She’s got this authority and matter of factness that I would have loved to seen pushed…to the absurd.
Who would have thought that in 1962 Ionesco would have written a play about a society and ruler in complete denial about it’s own destruction.
George Bush & The Republicans anyone??
