No Exit: Hell Is...

In Paul Rudnick's comedy Jeffrey, a character (a priest, actually) says that he never feels closer to God than when he is watching a Broadway musical. Heaven, to him (and, I'd expect, to many others), is good theatre.

Hell, therefore, must be bad theatre, and nowhere is this more evident than in the current revival of Jean-Paul Sartre's No Exit, at the Richmond Shepard Theatre. What could-- and should-- be an exercise in existentialism becomes, under Shepard's direction and new translation (with Nicholas Wolfson), a study in histrionics.

The premise of the play is wonderfully simple, and allows for a plethora of interpretations: Three people sit in a room and talk about their lives. Gradually, it becomes clear that all three are dead, the room is Hell, and that each person will serve as torturer for the other two by his or her mere presence. The joy of the play is in watching the three spiders become flies entangled in their own-- and each other's-- webs, until they come to realize Sartre's famous declaration: "Hell is other people."

With such a simple premise, then, No Exit is a director's chance to go wild with creativity. Some directors have staged the play on a shifting set that makes the struggle for power visual. Others have staged it in the round, making the audience the judges of the three lost souls. Mr. Shepard opts for a simpler approach, seating the audience on two sides of his square stage and using no other gimmicks. It could have worked if he had likewise directed his actors to play their roles with simple, unaffected emotion. Unfortunately, Mr. Shepard seems to have told his cast to overact and under-analyze their text, turning intensity into kitsch and making a tight, intense script into an overblown epic. Obvious references in the script are passed over in favor of unnecessary devices (pounding the floor to get a glimpse of life on Earth, singing during what should be a lengthy pause, etc.), and Mr. Shepard doesn't seem to trust the material enough to let it stand on its own. Likewise, while a new translation of the play was sorely needed (Paul Bowles changed the characters' names and the play's ending, while Stuart Gilbert's translation is dry and dull), Mr. Shepard and Mr. Wolfson's adaptation sounds just as stilted and artificial as Mr. Gilbert's, and does nothing to shed new light on the characters or the plays themes. Quite the opposite, in fact: the play's thesis statement has never, so far as I know, been translated as "Hell is others." Other what, I wonder?

The international cast of four are saddled with the unenviable task of interpreting a classic without a strong, unifying directorial hand to guide them. Micaela Leon, the German beauty who made a fantastic splash last winter with her cabaret salute to women of Weimar Berlin, is appropriately cool, sly and calculating as the sadistic Ines, and makes the best impression of the cast. Christelle Cervelle, as the socialite Estelle, is lovely and desirable, but never captures Estelle's shallowness or hypocrisy. Just as bad, her costume belies her role: despite mentioning in the text that she is in "light blue," she wears a white-and-blue sundress that exposes her bra straps, shoes that do not match the dress, and a headband. Somewhere, Anna Wintour is weeping. In the small role of a demonic valet, Mr. Wolfson blinks regularly during a monologue in which it is established that his character never, in fact, blinks-- perhaps symbolic of the production's overall blind eye in regards to the text. (Mr. Wolfson also, for some reason, plays a harmonica as he ushers each new soul into the room. Is the harmonica to hell what the harp is to heaven?) And as the hypocritical journalist Garcin, Joe Correa alternately shouts and mumbles his lines, regardless of what he is actually saying, and conveys his character's "emotions" like an actor in an old silent movie.

Brett Maughen's lighting design has some noble intentions, but, like the rest of the production, doesn't ultimately work: whenever the characters see their loved ones on Earth, the lights dim with a jolting speed, then come back up for a moment or two, and then dim again. If the dimming were slower and more subtle, the intended effect could better be accomplished. The set, by Shepard and Tim Glasby, is appropriately "angular," as described in the text, but the stage is set up so that no door is visible. Having an open space with string outlining a doorway makes the title of the play an out-and-out lie.

After the show, one can stay to hear Ms. Leon sing songs that Julliette Greco made famous in Paris. On its own, in a regular cabaret setting, the concert could be as fascinating and exciting as her Tigers, Muses and Jasmine, the above-mentioned show that earned Ms. Leon both Nightlife Award and MAC nominations. Unfortunately, following such an overwrought play, the concert lacks the emotional energy it could have, and while her rendition of "Surabaya Johnny" (in both German and English) is haunting and lovely, it isn't enough to compensate for the rest of the evening. When Tigers, Muses and Jasmine returns to Don't Tell Mama next month, perhaps Paris Café can run in repertory.

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