Play Challenging And Entertaining

Press, Volume CV, Issue 31005, 10 March 1966, Page 14

Play Challenging And Entertaining

This is university drama as it should be. lonesco’s “Exit the King” is exactly the kind of play the University Drama Society should be doing—challenging, exciting, fresh—and the production had all the integrity and directness that young actors can give it. The first night’s audience was left in no doubt that lonesco is an entertaining dramatist whose art is at once contemporary and timeless. A king, whose kingdom is allegorically our world today as well as everyone’s private world, is slowly dying. We watch his reactions to his approaching death first with laughter, then with embarrassment, and finally with cathartic pity and terror for our own dying. There is sweetness, and sadness, and laughter in this fascinating play—all cleverly juggled by the producer and cast with an impressive sensitivity to the constantly shifting sands of emotion upon which the play is built. Insight And Truth

Don Farr, with his clownface and skilfully controlled voice, gave an absorbing performance, full of insight and truth. If he lost command (for example, during his scene with the maid) it was perhaps because the dramatist was trying to extend what should have been left as shorter play, and perhaps be-

cause only a great actor could sustain such prolonged attention as the part demands. His make-up was excellent, although overstrong forestage lighting tended to kill his aging. Patsy O’Sullivan the Queen developed her role splendidly towards the revelation of her strength and authority at the end of the play. Ann Kingston, personifying physical love and affection, played an excellent supporting role—judging very- nicely when to demand attention and when to become part of the background. Barry Empson was very competent, but not quite sinister enough. “Why was I bom, if it wasn’t to be forever?” asks the King. He goes on, like a Lear and the fool combined, like an Anthony who has survived to an old age with his Cleopatra, like an Everyman who must settle his account, to explore some bitter truths about the nature of existence —all sugared with a coating of comedy. You will be amused by the comedy, you will be moved by the pathos, you will be stimulated by the exploration of dying, and you will be rewarded for your good judgment in making every effort to see this fine production. The season continues until Saturday. —P.R.S.