Double the absurdity

For Theatre of the Absurd fans, it's another reason to rejoice. Not one but two classic examples of the genre will open on Broadway this spring. Who says life has no meaning? (That's a joke! For more background, click here or here.)

Geoffrey Rush and Susan Sarandon will star in a revival of Exit the King, by Eugene Ionesco. Previews begin March 7 at the Barrymore Theatre. And Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot, with Bill Irwin, Nathan Lane, David Strathairn and John Goodman, starts previews April 3 at Studio 54.

This production of Exit the King, directed by Neil Armfield, was presented at the Belvoir St. Theatre in Australia in 2007, with Rush in the title role. A review in the Sydney Morning Herald raved about the Oscar-winner's performance.

Now, allow me to indulge in some shameless name-dropping. No, not Sarandon or Rush. I once met Eugene Ionesco. (Yes, I know, my brushes with greatness are rather obscure.)

I heard him speak in Boston when I was in college and I got his autograph afterward. (I went with a cute French boy I'd met in the campus bookstore!) Ionesco was nearly 70 then, and a kindly, formal gentleman from what I remember. He signed my copy of Tueur sans gages (Known in English as The Killer.)

Sadly, it's been a long time since I've used my high school and college French, so I can't read the play in its original language anymore. And I lost touch with the French boy. Quel dommage!