NY1 Theater Review: "Exit The King"
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Academy Award-winner Susan Sarandon returns to Broadway for the first time in almost 40 years, joining her Oscar-winning colleague Geoffrey Rush in Eugene Ionesco's "Exit the King." NY1's Roma Torre filed the following review."Exit The King" is a play about the meaning of life in all its wondrous, mundane glory from the perspective of death. It's not Thornton Wilder's "Our Town," but Eugene Ionesco went in a completely different direction and his absurdist riff on the theme is no less profound.
While "Exit The King" is not for everyone, Geoffrey Rush earns the crown for Broadway's most entertaining despot.
Rush plays King Berenger, a tyrannical but jovial ruler. When we meet him, everything in his kingdom has fallen into ruin. After his reign of four centuries, the earth has dried up, his subjects have all died or fled and the only ones left are his two wives, a lone guard and an overworked maid.
Berenger's second wife Marie is a doting soul mate who indulges his excesses, while his first wife Marguerite, a cold-hearted pragmatist, has come to the conclusion along with the court doctor/executioner that the king must die. So the entire play concerns their efforts to persuade the maladjusted monarch to give up his life.
Rush did the contemporary-sounding translation along with director Neil Armfield, seizing on Ionesco's manic energy. Their surrealist spin serves the play exceptionally well, evoking both slapstick and poignance.
As Marguerite, Susan Sarandon seems slightly out of her element. While everyone's shooting for classical farce, she's relatively subdued. Her best scene is at the end, soberly guiding the king to his final exit.
Andrea Martin's put-upon maid/servant Juliette is terrific. Lauren Ambrose's devoted ditz of a wife, coaxing the king to hang on, is weirdly touching.
But this is Rush's show and whether he's pratfalling, silly dancing, panicking or just sitting there, he commands an incredible arsenal of acting techniques, knocking us dead in this tour de force.
Ionesco pondered the insanity of life, while Wilder captured the sweetness and pain. But their plays share an intimate understanding of our mortality and all that's entailed in letting go.
Some people will no doubt find "Exit The King" frustrating and too long. I found this fine production both funny and moving, much like life itself.