Death can’t be avoided, but it can be ignored.

“In Exit the King,” showing this weekend in Shanley, it is exactly that cheery topic that is thrown into a whimsical spotlight, as it descends on a deteriorating kingdom ruled by dueling queens and a dying king who can’t ascend to the throne without throwing out his back.

“It’s basically a comedy about death,” says Communication senior and director Samantha Beach. “The comedy is in this tug of war between the people trying to get him ready to die and the one queen who is still trying to hold onto him.”

The play centers on the ailing and elderly King Berenger the First, played by Communication sophomore Will Sonheim, and his royal court as they try to push him from denial to acceptance of his imminent death. An absurdist play by Eugene Ionesco, the story features a characteristic verbal whimsy and abstract, hard-to-follow or seemingly out-of-the-blue statements and actions from caricature characters.

“It’s a big departure from the naturalistic drama that we see a lot on this campus,” says Beach, “but I think we’re ready for something different. We’re ready to laugh and to hear what I think is a really beautiful story.”

Despite its quirks, the team is confident that audiences won’t feel too disoriented by the tangled dialogue.

“It’s a good play for audiences that maybe aren’t too familiar with theatre, but familiar enough to want to watch a play,” says Communication sophomore and producer Matt Moynihan, in his first producing role at Northwestern. “It’s slapstick and fun. It’s an entertaining show.”

While Beach has directed outside of NU in the past, “Exit the King” marks her directorial debut here on campus.

“In my senior year, I wanted to do something unlike anything I’d ever worked on before,” says Beach. “It was something I wasn’t confident I’d do well on, but I felt free to take risks and this really appealed to me.”

Steeped with improv veterans, the show’s cast is instrumental in creating a perfectly orchestrated wackiness. But unlike the candid lightheartedness of improvisation, “Exit the King” calls for fully dimensional characters who are equally heartbreaking and humorous.

“It’s a subject that would traditionally be a tragedy, but the comedy is like a vessel to look at something honestly instead of just falling into something melodramatic and making death really sentimental,” says Sonheim.

While the King’s decline can be in turn hilarious and hard to watch, equally captivating is the dynamic between his two rival queens, Marie and Margeurite.

“Marie is the second wife to the king, but first in his heart,” says Communication sophomore Lindsey Chambers, who plays Marie. “Her outlook is very childish and