National Theatre, Olivier
4th August, 2018, matinee
“What was the point of being born if only to
die?”
I had low expectations of Patrick
Marber’s new version of Ionesco’s absurdist play Exit the King (1962). I thought that Sean Foley’s version of
Ionesco’s Amédée didn’t push the political
resonances of chaos taking over reason and logic far enough. I also enjoyed
(perhaps too much) Matt Trueman’s rather damning review of this production and
second-guessed what to expect. Like Amédée,
I thought that the comedy mostly fell flat. And the non-specific ‘house of
cards’ setting seemed too conceited and a reminder of an old Children’s educational
TV show, Megamaths. However, Exit the King’s interest in the
crumbling of a kingdom is relevant, and I found its musings on death – and
Anthony Ward’s visual representation of this – emotionally affecting.
It takes an NT stalwart of Marber’s
calibre to have the nerve to get the audience to stand on King Bérénger’s
entrance through the Olivier stalls on a regal red carpet which leads onto the
stage. It was furthermore intriguing that not only did most stand but remained
standing until invited to be seated by Ifans. I’m unsure whether this was due
to the power of Ifans’ stage presence or a particularly royalist audience. I
remained seated. Most of the characters – the doctor (Adrian Scarborough), the
older queen (Indira Varma), the guard (Derek Griffiths) – are two dimensional
puppets and so the actors can’t do much internalising and instead have fun with
playing types, buffoons and veneers. Ifans does something similar, lurching
around the stage like Shameless’ Frank
Gallagher, a sense of dangerous unpredictability about his performance. The
funniest moment, I found, was when he’s rolling about on the floor in denial of
his pending death, reverting to his childhood and says in a toddler-like way ‘I
want a biscuit’.
But occasionally Ifans’ performance
is something more than just posturing, reaching something at least close to
profundity as he begins to realise the inevitability of his situation. This 400
year old king, like all of us, must shuffle off his mortal coil. If he carries
on, the country will only suffer. People are drowning, universities are falling
into the abyss, and havoc is reaped across the land. Only death, and its
opportunity for rebirth, will save it. As his two queens and court hands count down
the minutes until the king’s death ‘at the end of the play’, the fascination
with death’s finite and levelling nature take hold. What is afterwards? Anything? Nothing? Why do we tend not to prepare
for death? What will we leave behind?
But overall, writing this a few
weeks after seeing it, Marber’s version isn’t good enough. It is set in its own definite world and yet that world is too
equivocal, with nothing and no one to really care about. Thus, it’s merely a
literary exercise. Thankfully, there is Ward’s design: the throne room of a
castle, the walls of which are complete with growing chasms, and hidden with nooks
and crannies for the cast to play in. As the king and the kingdom continue to disintegrate,
walls fly out and sink into the Olivier’s drum revolve, leaving only Bérénger’s
throne. Finally persuaded to follow his destiny, Ifans slowly but surely
follows the throne back on the red carpet into the distance. Eventually they
fade away until, in the end, there is nothing, nothing… nothing… until 6th
October.
Rhys Ifans and Adrian Scarborough in Exit the King. Credit: Simon Annand |