Bérenger, the dying king is really a man just like any one of us, incapable to accept his death and rebellious, who, having regained his strength, turns imperious and arrogant, as if his life and power could last forever; and upon sensing his own weakness, would cling onto anything, be that even the most transparent of lies. Ervin Szűcs excels at portraying these liminalities of human existence. Among the strengths of the production are Csaba Boros’s music as well as András Both’s sets and Angéla Balogh’s costumes.

The Cluj performance of Exit the King places less emphasis on the absurd elements typical of the theatre of the absurd and Ionesco’s oeuvre, instead showing a human community thrown into an absurd environment. Indeed, the absurd fades away by the end of the performance, when even the walls as well as the sky have been sundered, with nothing left but the naked confrontation with the inevitable. As the summary of the performance says in the programme: “Human vulnerability, helplessness and powerlessness – indeed, transience itself can only transcend the realm of the tragically grotesque or the ridiculously absurd if we put our hopes into redemption and believe in resurrection.” It is the above which makes this performance – which draws on György Gera’s Hungarian translation – a continuation, a counterpart as well as a counterpoint to I Am the Wind. 

Márta Bodó: „A király halódik úgy abszurd, hogy valójában végtelenül egyszerű” [Exit the King Is Absurd by Being Infinitely Simple], Szabadság, 8 April 2026