LE ROI SE MEURT (Exit the King) [Dramatic Revival/French Language] A: Eugene Ionesco; D: Jacques Mauclair; S/C: Jacques Noel; M: George Delerue; P: The French Institute/Alliance Française under the auspices of L’Association d’Action Artistique of the Government of the French Republic, with the patronage of the Cultural Counselor to the French Embassy, in the Le Tréteau de Paris Production; T: American Place Theatre (OB); 4/15/74-4/20/74 (9)
Note: No photos are available of this production.
Le Tréteau de Paris, a government-subsidized French company
of traveling actors, made a brief visit with this revival of Ionesco’s 1962
drama about the death of King Berenger I (Oliver Hussenot), an ageless monarch
who must face a death he never believed would come. An English-language version
played in New York in 1968.
This symbolic, but not typically absurdist, play was given a
reasonably effective mounting in which Oliver Hussenot offered what Anna
Kisselgoff deemed a “virtuoso” performance. The rest of the company reportedly
fell a bit short, thought Kisselgoff, one of the only reviewers from a major
outlet (the Times) to cover the work.
“This is not, however, professionalism marked by
homogeneity. As Queen Marie, the King's second and younger wife,
Christiane Desbois seemed set apart from the others yesterday by the shrill
declamatory style that brought to mind the Théâtre National Populaire. A
program note confirmed that she had indeed been part of that famous company. At
the other extreme there is Jean Dalmain, as the King's doctor and astrologer,
and Mr. Hussenot himself—veteran actors who translate Mr. Ionesco's puns,
contemporary mock jargon and deliberate commonplaces from surface clichés into
the underlying truths of the playwright's intentions.”
In 2009, Geoffrey Rush starred in a Broadway revival of the
play.
