Sartre's claustrophobic play probes human character under pressure

Theater~Intime most often tempers the serious with mirth and merriment of some kind, but their current production, "Men Without Shadows" brings unabashed existentialism to the stage. Following in Jean-Paul Sartre's (1905-1980) tradition of existentialism, "Men Without Shadows" is an extension of Sartre's philosophy that existence precedes essence, and that man's values are determined by his actions.

Junior Kristopher Kersey's version of "Men Without Shadows," a play in three acts set in World War II France, explores how people deal with torture, and how the decisions they make under pressure define who they are. French resistance fighters Canoris (Paul Quiros '06), Lucy (Nicole Muller '05), Francis (Branden Jacobs-Jenkins '06), Sorbier (Owen Tanzer '05), and Henry (Derek Chan '04) have been caught and imprisoned by the Nazis for burning down a French village. One by one they are summoned from the attic in which they are detained to be questioned and tortured by the Nazis.

The anticipation of torture alone brings the prisoners' psychoses to the surface. Francis, Lucy's sixteen year old brother, wildly paces the stage as he tries desperately to find a way to cope with the horrors of war, while Canoris, a middle-aged Greek, remains calm and rational in the face of Nazi cruelty. Henry tries to ignore the tension of the situation by sleeping and dancing, while Lucy searches desperately for comforting thoughts.

As Sorbier is summoned downstairs for his interrogation, he is driven crazy by irresolution. While the others know how they will respond to the pressure of the Nazis, Sorbier is unsure of how he will weather the beating to come. Tanzer brings Sorbier's uncertainty and self-doubt to life in a moving performance.

And while the characters, torn by the misery of war and the tirade of torture to come, bide the time before their turn in the interrogation room, their words are sporadically punctuated by music streaming upwards from downstairs (Rachel Timinsky '04).

As the people downstairs fiddle with the radio dials, the war-worn members of the French Resistance must contemplate their impending deaths as the ironically cheerful melodies of Glen Miller and Ella Fitzgerald filter up from below. Though it is difficult at times to hear some of the actors over the brazen 1940s swing, the music adds a note of irony to the joy of the music and the suffering of the inmates.

Downstairs, the Nazis experience their own sort of struggle. As Clochet (Matthieu Boyd '03), brings a jubilantly macabre note to the play, Landrieu (Emma Worth '05), the commanding Nazi officer, struggles to combat his inhumanity and Pellerin's (Matthew Leffel '05) resigned apathy with her more compassionate view of the prisoners. Just as the prisoners face their interrogations with trepidation, Landrieu unwillingly takes on the role of the interrogator. Worth gives an impressive and human performance in the role of a woman bound by duty to do a job that revolts her.

As the action of the play shifts back to the cool, blue darkness of the attic, the bright lights and horrors of the interrogation room linger onstage (lighting design by David Bengali '04). The attic, played on the front portion of the stage is always juxtaposed with the interrogation room further upstage (set design by Ana Ivascu '05, master builder Scott Grzenczyk '06). Since the scene never changes, the set serves as a reminder of the other party that is absent from the action of the play.

While the prisoners mediate on the Nazis downstairs, the interrogation room in the back makes their suffering more real as they listen for the screams of their countrymen downstairs. As the patriots are beaten and broken before the audience's eyes, the attic in the foreground haunts the action, and forces the audience to remember how the prisoners upstairs are listening and waiting for the cries of agony from below as the Nazis try to wrench the location of John (Charif Shanahan '05), the group's leader, one by one from the prisoners.

Though "Men With Shadows," riddled with anguish, existentialism, and screams of painful distress and is a far cry from lighthearted entertainment, it does paint a poignant portrait of men in a world seemingly doomed to meaninglessness.