Old king is a reluctant short-timer
At 400, this monarch doesn't want to die

January 22, 2008
By Bill Reinert for The Columbian

If You Go What: “Exit the King” When: Through Feb. 16, 8 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays, as well as 8 p.m. Sunday (Jan. 27), and 2 p.m. Feb. 10, 2008 Where: The Main Street Theatre, 606 Main St., Vancouver

An ailing leader nears the end of his “term.” He has started wars with neither purpose nor end. His top advisers have moved on, leaving him isolated. He fails to grasp his irrelevance, or why his followers no longer march in lockstep with him. He is profoundly out of touch. The leader is King Berenger I, a 400-year-old monarch immortalized, so to speak, in Eugene Ionesco’s play “Exit the King,” which runs through Feb. 16 at Arts Equity Onstage at the Main Street Theatre.

The king (Rod Harrel), ruler of a nameless and crumbling kingdom, knows he is ill but denies his impending death.

“They told me I could decide when I’d die,” he complains.

“That’s because they thought you’d have chosen to a long time ago,” retorts his former queen, Marguerite, whom he abandoned for the younger and prettier Marie. The identity of the nameless and mysterious “they” is left to our imagination.

The king insists, “I’ll die when I want, when I make up my mind to, when I have the time.”

Death isn’t so easily denied, however. In fact, it’s knocking at the door. Marguerite (Virginia Belt), a dignified, businesslike woman sporting a blood-red blazer, and the king’s doctor (John Bangs) break the news to the king that he has but 90 minutes to live.

The play unfolds in approximately real time, an effective dramatic device. Ionesco uses the conceit to let the audience follow Berenger’s fleet journey through the metaphysics of life and death.

As Berenger, Harrel slips convincingly into denial and delusion and, ultimately, resignation and acceptance.

Propping him up — literally, at times — is his current queen, Marie, squeezed absurdly and provocatively into a black bustier, tutu and cowboy boots. Marie (Janice Janesky), in love with her king and deeply concerned for her status, counters Marguerite and the doctor. Marie insists the king is still vital, still keeper of his own destiny.

Harrel peels away layer after layer of Berenger’s frailties and defenses, reluctantly coming to grips, as his remaining breaths tick away, with his triumphs, failures and lost opportunities. He preens, slumps and staggers around the stage, clinging to his staff for support. As he peers toward the horizon, he feebly commands the sun to erase the surrounding gloom.

“I thought I banished the clouds,” he mutters, puzzled, as Marie coaxes him back to his throne.

Serving as a sort of Greek chorus are Juliette (Kiri Dyken), a caustic domestic, and The Guard (Stefan Kay), a military sycophant sheathed in what passes for a Soviet bloc officer’s garb. In the end, even these two lowly subjects ignore the king’s commands.

Liberal doses of gallows humor leaven the drama, which walks a fine line between naturalism and the absurdity for which Ionesco is known. Janesky overdoes her tarted-up drama queen role occasionally with her bawling, shrieking and imploring, but is generally strong and often funny.

Harrel deftly mixes humor, pathos and physical comedy as he stumbles and shuffles about in a shabby fur coat and red boxer briefs.

In the end, Marguerite’s compassion and abiding love for her ex-husband surfaces. Their mutual sniping behind them, the two connect in a resolution as deeply moving as it is plausible. At her strongest here, Belt brings enormous dignity to bear as the saddened former queen.

The play’s obvious and more subtle parallels to our current political circumstances make it particularly timely. With its sometimes soaring language and strong performances, “Exit the King” is a skillful exploration of the nature of life, death, power and memory.