Review: No Exit by Chaotic Theatre Company
by Brian Paul Scipione
Death without End
Inès slips behind Estelle and coos comfortingly in her ear, gives her promises of faith, sisterhood and protection, and then suddenly she pinches her and shoves her away. . . Estelle cozies up to Garcin and whispers of an endless devotion in the only place that, endless, really has any meaning, then she turns away, haughtily dismissing him. . . Garcin shrugs aside his social predators and affirms his own solitude and determination, only to fall prostrate moments later before the prey turned predator. . . and so the eternal chess match of Sartre’s No Exit has begun.
Chaotic Theatre’s production at the Blue Theatre makes no bones about the fact that most audience members know they are walking into a glimpse of damnation. They even quote the play’s most memorable line on the back of the program, “Hell is other people.”
The set is perfect: an unmistakeable dead end. A white abyss, where imagination would be an intruder. The sound design is that of a punchy, eerie, nearly silent abyss. The set pieces are befitting of an eternal way station, because who really is comfortable waiting? But it is the pacing of this production that really seals the deal. When there is a pause, it is convincingly thoughtful for all involved. When there is a sudden burst of dialogue, it is somehow both spontaneous and expected.
Garcin drops onto his couch with the weight of a thousand worries and seems as immobile as Rodin’s thinker. Ines is still, cold, calculating but her appearance belies the twitching inside: a coiled venomous spring waiting to be sprung. Estelle is delicately perched at the end of her sofa, flitting her hair this way and that: is there anything going on inside other than a desire to be noticed? It’s not her preening and beauty that implies mystery but, instead, the quick glances she shoots around the room. And now they are cooperating, and now they are battling, and now they are quiet, and now they are forming an alliance as tenuous as a spiders’ web spun in a rain storm.
To quote the play:
“Why did you hurt her like that?”
“Because it was so easy. A word was enough to make her flinch.”
Michael Miller plays Joseph Garcin, an idealist cut down at the exact moment his life was to take its defining turn: the instant he was going to prove himself a hero or a coward. Miller approaches the role with precision, grace and an inestimable range. He opens the play with calm acceptance. He accepts the new characters with determined frivolity, and he reconciles himself to their lives with attentive poise. In many ways, the character of Garcin is Sartre’s lead: first to arrive, last to speak. When he is not forwarding the action he is the unseen mover causing the other characters to stand up and demand attention. Miller suits all of these moments with a very lively and spontaneous performance. One does not know what he will do next because he seems not to know.
Cassie Stewart as Inès Serrano is explosive when she’s sitting still. When she moves across stage, she absolutely slithers. When reading the play, one finds it easy to dislike the character of Inès but Stewart’s performance makes her a delightfully loveable villain. She knows her power and her place and balances between them like a sailor on a burning ship who can’t swim. The play’s Iago, she propels the action with well placed words and hesitations, but there are many moments in which she can’t control herself. Stewart sells the character’s longing so well that the audience wants what she wants. Unlike the other characters, she does not wear her pain and suffering on her sleeve; rather, it is in her eyes and her brow and thus so much more effective when you detect it.
Carrie Stephens portrays Estelle Rigault, a character much unlike the others in that she has not embraced her true self. Certainly, she is self-aware and self absorbed and perhaps even self actualized, but she is far from cognizant of what she has become. Her howls of innocence are legitimate in that she knows herself to be innocent enough. This is a difficult role that Stephens plays with endearing aplomb. It would be easier to tackle this character with a non-traditional interpretation: to re-define her as clear-cut siren or an out-right simpleton. One could even borrow from contemporary media and just send a thousand mixed symbols into the stratosphere and pretend they have no significance beyond that of the moment in which they are sent. Yet Stephens does not take this escape. Her depiction of Estelle is, not to coin a phrase, “to thine own self be true.” In turns, she is promiscuous, faithful, confused, repentant, seductive and absent -- but always compelling, always convincing.
Director Andrew Black’s No Exit fulfills the promises of the original play while connecting it to a modern audience in a raw and beautiful form. It may be that the existence of humans has little to do with anything more than the petty occurrences of our day-by-day lives, or it may be that every single decision we make during our fleeting performance will be held against us for an immeasurable space of eons. It may be that our dealings with one another define us, while every little thing we hold back from one another defines nothing more than the sides of the coffins that enclose our minds’ final re-calculations.
Either way, we will never know as we trip along this mortal coil We will certainly not be able to change ourselves on either side of the light fantastic, even if a more noble audience exists
No Exit
by Jean-Paul Sartre
Chaotic Theatre Company
Springdale Rd and Lyons
behind Goodwill warehouse
Austin, TX, 78702
