Currently, the Undermain Theatre is presenting Exit the King which closes Sunday. The surrealist comedy by Eugène Ionesco is a play that director Tim Johnson always wanted to do. He pitched it to his own theater Kitchen Dog but the timing didn’t work out. Undermain’s Bruce DuBose then asked Johnson to helm the show.
“When he asked me, Joe [Biden] was still in the race, and it felt incredibly relevant,” Johnson said.
The show centers on a king, played by DuBose, who refuses to give up power and his kingdom is suffering because of that. Or, as Undermain describes it:
Ionesco’s absurdist comedy 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.
What Johnson saw were parallels between that show and current topics as those who remain power drain their own country. But then he saw something more.
“As we worked on it, this turned out to be the least important part of the play. This wasn’t intended as a political piece,” he said.
The team stuck close to the script and two of its translations while also giving it a contemporary feel within its lines. The result is a clever play that is heavy on its surrealist comedy that all boils up to a climactic and serious ending.
Related: Review: Undermain’s ‘Exit the King’ is a surreal look at a delusional despot
Less about anything political, Johnson and his cast found the themes more about the fear of death.
“Ionesco believed these characters could teach him about the acceptance of death. As I talked to the actors, the characters’ desperation felt relatable with their thoughts on death, but also shifts gears a few times that disorients the audience for a genuine response,” the director said.
At the same time, these characters are larger than life which adds a humor to the grisly topic.
For the gay director, he likes that there is an undertone of a queer aesthetic — particularly in Queen Marguerite, played with a stone-faced panache by Rhonda Boutte.
“Well first, there’s some really good drag, and the characters challenge assumptions, which, in that way, feels very queer,” he said.
For her role, Johnson said that in conversation with Boutte, he told her to consider a drag queen playing the role.
She said he took the note and mixed in some Grace Jones to come up with a character that was giving Mommie Dearest realness…but also, some legit realness.
“Queen Marguerite is the most sensible one of the bunch,” Boutte added.
As death is undeniable to the king, Marguerite is the one who steps in while rival Queen Marie, the trophy wife, is more concerned with her own ambition and the rest of the court are simply useless.
This show is exactly the type of theater that Johnson is drawn to.
“There’s this commonality in this show that they are all talking in different ways about not dealing with reality — there’s this refusal to even deal with it,” he said. “I’ve always been attracted to the absurdist. I think that’s partly informed by living through the AIDS crisis.
“My world view was certainly affected by that which molded me into an artist. That and David Bowie.”
As for the gayest play he’s ever done, well, that’s personal.
“I’ve done a few Albees which had some gay metaphors, and I also did Some Explicit Polaroids for Kitchen Dog,” he said. “But the gayest show is probably my one-man show that had two actors back in 2013. But I do miss messy old queer art. I wonder what’s going to happen to queerness as we become more accepted.”
[Ed. note: This interview was held before Election Day.]
Johnson sees an irony in such queer acceptance.
“I’m probably going to age myself a bit and sound like an old fogey, but I am interested to see what happens. Maybe it’s a catastrophe of acceptance where being queer or gay and getting married and having the white picket fences all sort of fold into a normalcy so I wonder what will happen to outsider queerness in art.”
He added “I do see what it’s becoming, and now we’re seeing that similar unconventional theater art that has the perspective of all the different genders. It’s an interesting time.”
Just like watching Exit the King.
“My hope is that the audience will just go and trust what we’ve done,” he said.
For tickets, visit Undermain.org.