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Exit the King

Full-Length Play, Drama  /  3w, 3m

Donald Watson, Eugene Ionesco

By Eugene Ionesco
Translated by Donald Watson

"The imagination itself is original, bizarre, powerful. The most moving of all Ionesco's plays and, if only from the width of its sympathies. It is incomparably his greatest work." - The New York Times

Exit the King

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    Cast Size
    3w, 3m

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Summary
First produced in 1963 starring Alec Guinness and successfully revived to great acclaim on Broadway in 2009, this absurdist exploration of ego and mortality is set in the crumbling throne-room of the palace in an unnamed country where King Berenger the First has only the duration of the play to live. Once, it seemed he ruled over an immense empire and commanded great armies, now his kingdom has shrunk to the confines of his garden wall. Refusing to accept his end, he is attended by his present and former Queens who must help him face the final inevitable truth of life: death.

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    "The imagination itself is original, bizarre, powerful. The most moving of all Ionesco's plays and, if only from the width of its sympathies. It is incomparably his greatest work." - The New York Times

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    Authors

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    Donald Watson

    Eugene Ionesco

    Eugene Ionesco
    (born Nov. 26, 1909, Slatina, Rom.died March 28, 1994, Paris, France) was a Romanian-born French playwright. He studied in Bucharest and Paris, where he lived from 1945. His first one-act antiplay, The Bald Soprano (1950), inspired a revolution in dramatic techniques and help ...
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