King Me

A new Broadway adaptation of Ionesco's Exit The King, starring Geoffrey Rush and Susan Sarandon, is getting raves. Having been involved in a high school production, I'd have been interested to see it in any case.

The absurdist play is about a old ruler who's dying--and in denial--as his kingdom crumbles about him. It's no Lear (what is?), and I don't consider Ionesco a modern classic, but I think if done well, it still holds the stage.

My main fear, based on a number of reviews, is the production may try too hard to be "relevant" by commenting on the recent administration. (I wouldn't be surprised if this was the impetus for putting it on--the original production was done in 2007 in Sydney.) This sort of stuff may give a frisson to the audience, but can cheapen a production as easily as inserting modern references into an old work. It doesn't take a lot of imagination to trick up any play about a questionable leader to make it about Bush or Reagan or Clinton or Nixon or LBJ, etc. How tiresome. (You don't see too many revivals of MacBird! these days.)

Ben Brantley ends his review saying "the longer you look, the more human the image becomes until finally, you realize with a shudder, it has turned into a mirror." That's the effect you want. If the audience believes it's watching a condemnation of someone else, the play goes from being challenging to smug and self-congratulatory.