At No Exit, everything is done well, nothing seems out of place, and the effect works. Audience members walk through an impeccably decorated antechamber, creepy and Halloween-appropriate in red and black. The music as you walk in and out is the perfect blend of kitschy injoke and sincere soundtrack. They even had Georgetown Cupcakes at the press run (the reviewer cannot be held responsible for the effect of cupcakes on the content of this review.)
It is hard to talk about the plot of No Exit without giving something away. While there aren’t really twists or surprising fight scenes—the whole play is, basically, just three people talking on three couches—Jean-Paul Sartre’s masterwork is constructed carefully, slowly unfolding on the stage. The audience’s understanding of what is going on runs at times ahead and at times behind that of the characters. We can follow their reactions, but never quite know what to think, feeling perpetually off-balance.
Pacifist journalist Joseph Garcin (Ryan Dully (COL ‘12)), hard-headed lesbian Inez Serrano (Lily Kaiser (COL ‘12), assistant News editor for the Voice), and bubbly young socialite Estelle Rigault (Francesca Pazniokas (COL ‘11)) sit in a room together with three couches. Gradually, it becomes clear that these people are in hell, and that they deserve it. Finding out what that means, exactly, provides the main thrust and revelations of the play. Sartre, like any good philosopher, knows his way around a succinct statement of purpose, and the play is full of fabulous one-liners: “We’re in hell, my pets; they never make mistakes and people are not damned for nothing;” “When I can’t see myself I begin to wonder if I really and truly exist;” and the classic “There’s no need for red hot pokers—hell is other people.” However, as a philosopher, the author also has a tendency to hammer home his points just a little too hard. Those revelations are hinted at, then revealed, then articulated by the characters, then thought about, and so on.
It is something of a feat to hold an audience’s attention on three people talking for a whole 70 minutes straight, with no intermission, but that is exactly what director Jon Tosetti (COL ‘10) and his actors do. Even when they are sitting there staring at each other, it still feels as if something is happening. All three actors are fantastic to watch. Pazniokas is particularly engaging and truly inhabits her empty-headed pretty girl. Kaiser does a great job at the biting anger and cruelty of Inez, but falters a bit when asked to be seductive and manipulative, which is unfortunate—in her mannish pants and shirt, she looks damn good. Dully, though a bit over-mannered, manages well the layers of his character, the most complex (and male) of the bunch. And Conor Smith (COL ‘10), as the valet, is fantastically creepy, reptilian, and unctuous—whether he is onstage or seating the audience members as they walk through the creepy antechamber, a device that worked exactly as well as it could have. No Exit, in a production as well-crafted as this, is that rare piece of culture that is as fun to watch as it is interesting to think about.
