The conceit of "No Exit," the current production at Theatre~Intime, is described pretty succinctly by its title: place three strangers in a room together, without any means of escape, without a moment of privacy or chance of change, and then watch them circle around one another, attack, regroup, rip into the most painful secrets of one another's hearts, break down to beg for a sympathy that never comes and then rise up to attack once more. It all makes for a thought-provoking look at human nature under a microscope.
"No Exit" is one of the most famous plays of Jean-Paul Sartre, the French existentialist philosopher. Unlike "Men without Shadows," another Sartre piece staged at Intime last year, "No Exit" is not overtly political. Rather, it comprises an existentialist critique of the pitfalls of everyday existence. Director Melissa Galvez '05 describes the work as an experiment play or a "test case," a collection of types exaggerated to demonstrate a point.
This may be true, but the cast brings the quirks and flaws of each character to such vivid life that we feel being locked together in a small, stuffy, oppressively ugly room as an intimately human dilemma as well as a philosophical construction. One by one, each is led in and exhibits a mixture of rage, fear, and resignation, all of which give way to bafflement as to why such a diverse group has been placed together.
There is Garcin (Christian Burset '07), the self-described journalist and "man's man," who yearns to come to terms with his own memories in peace and quiet. He is the rationalist of the three, the one who desperately tries to make sense out of their plight.
There is the coquettish Estelle (Crystal Scialla '05), who sighs for a mirror and her lost admirers. Sartre gives her some of the play's funniest lines: she can't sit on a certain sofa because "I'm in indigo and it's electric blue!"
Then there is the ferocious Inez (Ronee Penoi '07), by turns lustful and witheringly sarcastic, who speaks truths the other two would rather not hear. She thrives off of mocking their weaknesses. As the evening progresses, however, our evaluation of each character will slowly change as more and more of their respective pasts is revealed.
Penoi seems to inhabit the role of Inez with such fiendish glee that after the show, it came as a shock to see her conversing like a polite human being. Every time Garcin builds up some labored scheme to make his life more bearable, she tears it back down again. At one point, he has suggested that they should all sit quietly on their sofas, devoted to their own thoughts. For a while the other two comply, but then Inez begins to hum, then to belt out to a gloomy ballad about heads rolling off. But as the evening progresses, Inez, too, reveals vulnerable points.
The set (design by Rebecca Simson '04, master builders Jason Grover '05 and Leslie Warren '05) evokes the spirit, if not the letter, of Sartre's script. The stage directions originally called for "Second Empire" furniture, which the French audiences of the 1940s who first saw the play would have recognized as tacky.
In Galvez's production, this style is translated for modern audiences into lime-green walls and retro neon sofas, with the blue floor tilted upward. Galvez describes this staging as "a recognizable yet otherworldly reality." Sound (Dan Iglesia '04) also contributes to a feeling of disorientation, and, more than any other aspect of the production, to a sense of acute claustrophobia.
Rob Rich '06 appears only briefly as the Valet but his smirking presence serves as a creepy reminder of the "establishment" that has doomed these three characters to one another's company.
"No Exit" addresses key tenets of Sartre's philosophy. For him, identity is created by one's actions, not by words. Many people fall into the trap of defining themselves according to others' views of them. They become dependent on external interpretations of their identities instead of looking within.
This reliance on other people is what binds together the play's protagonists. As Garcin observes, the secrets they know about each other tie them into a sort of web, so that each one's action resonates with the other two and draws them in as well. It is this reliance, not just the physical walls of their prison, that shuts them in. But given an out, would they even accept it? Such questions make for a thought-provoking evening. For those interested in continuing the debate beyond the performance, Galvez and the cast will be holding an informal "talk back" on Friday after the show to let audience members bring up their own responses.
But you don't need to be either a philosopher or an existentialist to enjoy "No Exit." Most of us can draw on more than enough personal experience of getting stuck with the wrong person to sympathize with Garcin, Inez and Estelle. For one evening, at least, being locked up with these characters is a pleasure.
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