Exit the King by Eugène Ionesco

Overview

Exit the King by Eugène Ionesco Co-Produced by Jack Spahr
Presented as part of the Mill Theatre Co-Production series

This landmark absurdist masterpiece returns in Donald Watson's translation. First staged in 1963 starring Alec Guinness and later revived to great acclaim on Broadway in 2009, the play unfolds in the decaying throne room of an unnamed kingdom where King Bérenger I has only the length of the performance left to live. Once ruler of vast lands and mighty armies, his empire has dwindled to the limits of his garden wall. As the kingdom quite literally crumbles around him, the King rails against the inevitable, attended by his present and former Queens who must guide him toward the final truth he refuses to accept. By turns darkly comic and deeply moving, this is a powerful meditation on ego, mortality, and the fragile theatre of human denial — a story about knowing when to let go as the world falls away.