Exit the King
Good Fit
- Readers who want a theatre text on death, fear and the end of life
- Anyone who wants to meet the deeper and more serious face of absurdist theatre
- Theatre and literature students: in this play the stage and set directions are part of the meaning
Not a Fit
- Anyone wanting a light, fast play full of events: the main event is the King's gradual process of dying
- Anyone sensitive to the theme of death and serious illness: the text works this theme at length and intensely
- Anyone expecting joking, fast wordplay like earlier absurd plays: this play is heavier and more monologue-driven
The play opens with an official ceremony: the guard announces the King, the two queens and the doctor, but the throne room is in ruins, the radiator is cold and a crack is visible in the wall. The first wife Marguerite is stern and practical: she scolds the second wife Marie — «your eyes are bloodshot, your beauty is spoiling» — and announces that she has spoken to the doctor: the King will die and must be told. Marie weeps and begs «don't tell him, let him realise himself». Marguerite replies «you had years to prepare, and you were throwing balls and parties».
The state of the country collapses like the King's body: according to Marguerite the borders have shrunk, the land is «full of holes like a gruyère cheese», the population has fallen from nine billion to one billion, the soldiers do not want to fight. The Doctor (also surgeon, executioner, bacteriologist and astrologer) brings news from the sky: Mars has collided with Saturn, the sun has lost 50–70% of its strength, spring left two and a half hours ago, frogs rain from the clouds. Juliette complains she cannot sweep the «living-room» and clears cobwebs again and again.
King Béranger I enters barefoot, in pain: arms and legs numb, backache, but still thinks himself ruler. He looks for an engineer, has banned the clouds, hates cobwebs. Marie supports him, and Marguerite tells him: «You are going to die». The King denies it: «I know, we all know; you will tell me when the time comes; in forty years, fifty years, three hundred years, when I wish». Marguerite makes it exact: «In an hour and a half, at the end of the show, you will die».
The King tries to prove his authority and every attempt fails: he orders the guard to arrest them and the guard cannot move, turned to stone; he commands «let the doctor's head fall» and nothing happens; he commands that Marguerite's crown fall and it is his own crown that falls. The guard, Juliette and Marie shout «Long live the King!» again and again, the King falls and rises — the scene is to be played «like a tragic puppet show». Finally the King orders Marie «come to me, embrace me», and Marie cannot move.
- The guard's announcements and court ceremony put death inside a theatrical spectacle
- News of cosmic catastrophe (the Mars–Saturn collision, the weakening sun) turns the play from a simple «illness story» into allegory
- The two queens represent two stances: Marguerite resolute, Marie with pleading and hope
- The King's «tests» of authority (guard, crown, falling head) show helplessness visibly on stage
The author's other major play, on mass pressure and the individual
A wholly closed absurdist play on the approach of the end
A classic novella about a man trying to accept death
At the end of the part read the King orders Marie «come to me and embrace me». Marie says «I will come, I will come» but cannot lift her arms, and even says «I have forgotten what one must do to walk». Marguerite tells the Doctor that Marie thinks love is all-powerful, but conditions have changed. What follows is outside the scope of this review.
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