Mortal Souls

THE EMOTIONS of bored and dying men are the fabric of Ionesco's dramas. He expresses them with wonderful simplicity. Dilemmas are couched in the profound power of articulated feeling, not in metaphor or metaphysics. His characters speak with ever-expanding honesty and urgency, evoking the most elemental human feelings.

Exit the King, one of Ionesco's later and more elaborate plays, is a ritualized orchestration of one man's death. Beranger, the infirm king of a wasted nation, lapses into childhood memories, sensuous daydreams, and anguished tirades while trying to understand his impending doom. One of his wives, the hateful Marguerite, and the attending physician, urge him to "abdicate" his life. His second wife Marie stands opposed--consoling him with love and hope, beckoning him to resist death.

Unfortunately John Costello, the director, fails to infuse the production with the rhythm and shape essential to all existential theater. Since there is little growth of plot or character, interest must come from an increasing intensity. No one in the Ex audience made it to the edge of his seat Thursday.

The most successful aspect of the production is the work of Ionesco. His play is so clear and stunning that its power cannot be suppressed. To carry the script, the cast need not create characters, only express emotion--and most of them managed that.

Steven Bruch does much more. He admirably achieves the requisite pain and humor in his exceedingly difficult role as Ionesco's anti-hero, Beranger, though his peak intensity arrives too soon. Midway through the play, he has taken the pitch about as high as he can and after that he stagnates, transforming humorous lines into wails of sadness.

QUEEN MARGUERITE is the most complex character in Exit the King. As the play proceeds she must change from death's morbid apologist to a magnanimous prophet. But Marlene Nelson as Marguerite maintains a uniformly dour and malignant tenor, never clearly establishing what she feels or wants. Ionesco is vague on these points, but she should clarify the uncertainty. Her work in the final scene in the play, when she tells the king and the audience what it is to die, is the biggest let-down of the evening.

Another disappointment is the director's failure to take advantage of one of Ionesco's most interesting devices. Occasionally the dialogue moves into a ritualistic, religious tone which is potentially moving, but in this production conveys nothing more than the cast's uncertainty about what they are doing.

The full-bodied, honest efforts of the company cannot make the play a success. Even existential drama--composed mainly of getting out on stage and telling it like it is--demands artifice as much as force. No one enjoys two hours of unfocused emotion.