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No EXIT by Jean-Paul Sartre

translated by Rob Melrose

review by Robert Avila in SF Bay Guardian February 2, 2005

 

"Ah, there it is. That human dignity you always revert to." A lot of good it will do down here too. This is bourgeois hell. It's bad enough the bellboy (Nick Maccarone) talks back in so ominously supercilious a tone; Garcin (Adam Kenyon Venker) finds recourse to the usual evasions offered by civility only feed the beast. And who's the beast? "Hell," goes the famous line, "is other people." A formula for endless torment between Garcin and his roommates Ines (Darcy Brown-Martin) and Estelle (Danielle O'Hare), a precise mixture of the compatible and incongruous. Simple, elegant, and brutal: three words that also apply to Cutting Ball Theater's excellent production of Sartre's 1944 drama, a precursor to the theater of the absurd, presented for the first time in artistic director Rob Melrose's vibrant new translation. Director Adriana Baer helms three well-honed and engrossing performances – framed by Jon Brennan's crisp and spooky scenic-lighting design, Cliff Caruthers's sinister soundscape, and Amy Nielson's immaculately civilized costumes – as desire, sadism, and conscience turn the heat up on the most urbane of infernal settings. (Avila)

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