A great cast at a great Dallas company can’t bring life to Ionesco’s absurdity.
Mightily as they try, one of the best casts assembled for a play in recent memory at one of the best theaters in Dallas cannot breathe life into Eugène Ionesco’s Exit the King.
Seen at Sunday’s matinee, the play is dead on arrival at Undermain Theatre, unlike King Berenger the First (Bruce DuBose), who fights a diagnosis of his impending mortality from the Doctor (Jim Jorgensen) for two intractable hours.
In case audience members wonder how long there is until the end of his life and of Ionesco’s drawn-out hopelessness, Queen Marguerite (Rhonda Boutté) keeps everyone updated. Are there really still 12 minutes to go?
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Sure, he’s dying, has been since birth, like all of us, the King acknowledges in director Tim Johnson’s relatively straightforward rendering of Ionesco’s dark view of the human condition. But why now? After all, he’s been alive for hundreds of years. How existence flies by may be the one insight Exit the King lands. It’s the thing most people ignore until they can’t.
What Ionesco can’t help is piling on. Not only does the King face a death sentence, everything around him does, too. He has few remaining subjects. The palace is crumbling. The land is barren. The heat is out.
This repetitive circling around Ionesco’s premise that life is pointless doesn’t make for compelling drama. At best, in fleeting moments of pratfall humor and giddy verbal slapstick, it rises to the equivalent of a Monty Python sketch. Contemporary references like the King promising to “make the kingdom great again” are groaners.
With the King’s stubborn attitude, the plot, such as it is, hinges on how those around him behave in reaction. Marguerite is the unflinching realist who always speaks the truth. She’s pitted against the King’s second, younger trophy wife, Queen Marie (Lauren LeBlanc), who’s dedicated to protecting him and herself from reality, joining him in his absurd denials.
The other characters are from the underclass, the maid/cook/everything servile Juliette (Karen Parrish), who suffers all manner of indignities. Her complaints go unheard. The Guard (Dennis Raveneau), who announces entrances, puffs up the King’s resume and repeats what others have said, provides a few laughs.
The acting is mostly understated, relying on Ionesco’s words to speak for themselves. They’re not enough.
Details
Through Nov. 24 at 3200 Main St. $12.50-$38.50. undermain.org.
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