Exit the King

by Eugène Ionesco

CAST:
Jacques Bourgaux
Marie Cayrol
Daphné Millefoa
Karelle Prugnaud
Laurent Schuh
Vojko Zidar

Directed by: Silviu Purcarete
Original music: Vasile Sirli
Set and costume design: Silviu Purcarete
Assistant set designer: Jayne Morley
Assistant director: Stéphane Raveyre
Light design: Silviu Purcarete & Marc Chikitou

Project management: Nathalie Saïdi
Assistant project management: Emanuela Righi
Project management in Slovenia: Ksenija Gorjak, Damir Domitrovic Kos

Production: LES ARTS ET MOUVANTS, À L’ENDROIT DES MONDES ALLANT VERS / PARIS
Co – production: Ex-Ponto Festival et Kulturno Drustvo B-51 (Slovenia) / Théâtre d’Esch (Luxemburg) / National Drama Theatre in Ljubljana (Slovenia) / MOT International Theatre Festival (Macedonia) / Scène Nationale de Bayonne Sud-Aquitain.

Project supported by: Culturesfrance, Ministry of Culture of the Slovak Republic, Ljubljana City Hall, Charles Nodier French Institute, Romanian Cultural Institute (Cantemir program), the Embassy of France to Romania, the French Institute in Bucharest, UNITER and BRD-Groupe Société Générale, the principal partner of the Bucharest shows.

Acknowledgments:
Eugène and Marie-France Ionesco
Henri Paul, French ambassador to Romania
Denis Soriot, Didier Dutour and Marie Beldiman-Popescu, the French Institute in Bucharest
Jean-Jacques Victor, Mathias Rambaud, Charles Nodier French Institute in Ljubljana, Slovenia
Mathieu Duchene, French Embassy in Luxemburg
Katia Danilă, Magda Cârneci, Simona Edwards, Mirela Sofronea, Romanian Cultural Institute, Paris
Roxana Iftimie, Interim Romanian ambassador to France
Ioana Moca, French Cultural Center in Cluj-Napoca
Ariel Goldenberg, Jean-Pierre Wurtz, Bernard Faivre d’Arcier, Thierry Pariente
Astrid Doorman, Alan Fairbairn, Francisco Moreno, Jayne Morley și Marie Cayrol

Play duration: 1h 45min

Photo: Jayne Morley

A great personality of European theater, Silviu Purcarete opted for an international team to stage Exit the King by Eugene Ionesco in 2010, after his 2007 success with Macbett, by the same author, at the Royal Shakespeare Company. This international coproduction is for Purcarete the opportunity of a new encounter with Ionesco, as well as with the music writer and close collaborator Vasile Sirli, and artists from France and Slovenia.

“Silviu Purcarete is tackling this play, which until recently looked totally alien to him, in my opinion, and I am trying to understand his reasons. Why is he doing it now? A mere accident? An arbitrary decision? What I do understand, after seeing and revisiting his Faust, his masterpiece, is that a new cycle is being initiated, which could be named ‘the stage director and death’. To Purcarete, Exit the King follows in Goethe’s footsteps. The Epicurean, until now seduced by Rabelais, is taking distance from him in order to ask himself a few questions about the best way to leave, about what this departure involves, and about what it retains from the point of view of ‘theatricality’. The man who staged Faust as a testamentary work in which the fate of the protagonist is mingled with that of theater, with unique brilliance, now embarks on Exit the King, a play in which Ionesco, against a background of exacerbated fear, sets in motion all theatrical means without the slightest economy. This is what undoubtedly attracts Purcarete who, by staging Exit the King, wishes to face death while trusting in theater. This is what, in my opinion, connects the great, already fulfilled Faustian project with the Ionescan project to come,” writes the essayist George Banu about the stage director’s choice.

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