Review: Scena Theatre's NO EXIT at Atlas Performing Arts Center

The scene: Hell.

(OK, so maybe it looks like a classy living room, but it’s still Hell.)

The protagonists: one man and two women, condemned to spend eternity together.

The action: barely 1 ½ hours into said eternity, they discover they loath each other and are already hard at work torturing each other to the hilt.

That’s humanity, in a nutshell.

In an age when social media have enabled us to troll and torture everyone the whole world over, just for the thrill of it, there are plays that force us to reckon with our inner demons. And acknowledge just how amoral and destructive we can be.

Some playwrights flash before our eyes, only to disappear when their time has passed. Others, like French philosopher-playwright Jean-Paul Sartre, remain compellingly relevant long after their passing. His one-act examination of the human conscience, No Exit, is likely to find its way on the boards for generations to come.

And in the right hands, it still gives you chills.

Scena Theatre’s Artistic Director, Robert McNamara, has returned to Sartre’s classic with renewed vigor, and the chess-like precision with which he directs his cast, coupled with his razor-sharp design team, remind us why Sartre’s vision haunts us years after his passing. By turns hilarious and claustrophobic, Scena’s No Exit reminds us why live theatre remains the best, if not the only place where we can contemplate ourselves, and scrutinize our all-too-familiar flaws.

The design team of Carl Gudenius and Michael Stepowany seduce us with a stylish-looking living room complete with tasteful abstract paintings, divans and a faux-marble floor that would be the envy of anyone—anyone still living, that is. Gudenius’ discreet, red back-lighting is the only hint that this is not the kind of place you’d care to visit anytime soon. 

Into this deceptively cozy room enters Garcin, recently executed by firing squad, and an appropriately sardonic Valet who spends his days in service to, well, You Know Who. As the Valet, Kim Curtis is the personification of civility, easing his charges into what he knows full well will be millennia of misery. His ironic delivery guarantees ample room for a laugh, or two as he coolly reminds Garcin what’s to come.

Stas Wronka gives us a Garcin whose masculine pose and swagger gradually give way to panic. His pleas for sympathy fall flat when it becomes clear that his actions were more about cowardice than principle. His character becomes even more loathsome when we realize that Sartre first staged No Exit during the Nazi occupation of Paris, less than one month before D-Day. And although Garcin’s character is technically from Brazil, Parisian audiences would have instantly recognized him as a cynical collaborator with the Vichy government, and been suitably disgusted. Wronka is able to give us a man who realizes he has lost control over his reputation; not only will he be forgotten, his colleagues will be glad to be rid of him.

The two women who will be his cell-mates and nemeses, Inez and Estelle, have their own dark pasts to atone for. Played here with cool, calculating relish by GALA company member Luz Nicolás, her Inez is a lesbian who thrives on psychological torture—especially if it involves torturing her own lover. Then there’s Estelle, whose outward physical charms mask the heart of a cold-blooded killer. Danielle Davy forcefully embodies a character whose looks have empowered her to get away with nearly everything—and she is clearly willing to use that power in devastating ways.

Costume Designer Alisa Mandel brilliantly delineates each character, from the Valet’s almost comical bell-boy outfit to Inez’s dark pinstripe suit. Meanwhile Estelle’s seductive red dress, with lines that plunge downward and upward, explains why both Inez and Garcin are smitten with her, and why she seems able to navigate the rough seas in that room, at least initially.

There are moments of conflict and intimacy, both of which are choreographed skillfully by Paul Gallagher. And it comes as little surprise that the intimacy we see between Garcin and Estelle, for all their outward pretense, comes from a desperate desire to avoid reality, and to torture that third person in the room. The un-sexiest sex scenes imaginable, in other words, and precisely what is called for within the confines of Sartre’s vision of Hell.

If you want to see Sartre himself these days, you’ll need to walk through the 14th Arrondissement on the Left Bank and step into the Montparnasse Cemetery, home to the famous departed. You’ll find his gravesite dotted with notes and stones of remembrance, young admirers who still come to ask questions like the one I found on a scrap of paper when I was there:

“Dear M. Sartre, you say ‘Hell is other people;’ but is living alone any better?”

As for Sartre’s ultimate address, well, I leave it to you to judge. In the meantime, see this No Exit, because it’s one of the most finely crafted you’ll ever see.

Production photo: The cast of No Exit, from left to right: Danielle Davy, Stas Wronka, and Luz Nicolás. Photo courtesy of J. Yi Photography.

Running Time:  1 hour and 30 minutes with no intermission.

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