Plot
In the other plays of the "Berenger Cycle", Berenger appears as a depressed and insecure everyman who is prone to sentimentality. In Exit the King, he is the solipsistic and belligerent King Berenger the First who was apparently at one point able to command nature and force others to obey his will. According to his first wife he is over four hundred years old. He is informed early in the play that he is dying, and the kingdom is likewise crumbling around him. He has lost the power to control his surroundings and is slowly losing his physical capabilities as well. Through much of the play, he is in denial of his death and refuses to give up power. Berenger's first wife, Marguerite, along with the Doctor, tries to make Berenger face the reality of his impending death. Berenger's second wife, Marie, sympathetically attempts to keep Berenger from the pain of knowing his death is imminent. The king lapses into Berenger's normal sentimentality and eventually accepts that he is going to die. The characters disappear one by one, eventually leaving the king, now speechless, alone with Marguerite who prepares him for the end.[1] Marguerite and then the king disappear into darkness as the play ends.
