No Exit

Think you got troubles, Bunky? Well, life is over for the three characters trapped in Jean-Paul Sartre’s classic existentialist play, No Exit. Estelle is a nymphomaniac who drove her lover to suicide. Inez is a lesbian who drove her cousin’s wife to suicide. Garcin is a pacifist who betrayed his own cause (at least he didn’t drive anyone to suicide). Now the three of them are trapped for eternity in an endless love triangle that forms its own hell.

In No Exit, philosopher/playwright Sartre dramatizes how our choices influence the world we live in. Nihilism and hilarity aren’t often linked romantically but this daring re-thinking of No Exit hits the ground running. And the ground beneath the characters doomed feet is very shaky indeed as they negotiate a stage platform that gyrates like a giant teeter totter, just like our current, maddeningly unstable world. This stylish American Repertory Theatre production is imaginatively staged by director Jerry Mouawad.