By Alisha Hagey and Jason Hagey
Sisyphus Theatre Company presents Jean-Paul Sartre’s No Exit at the Rose Wagner Performing Arts Center in Salt Lake City, Utah. New beginnings are exciting. Fledgling steps taken in a darkened theatre (which had a completely full audience, I might add). Hopes for success riding high. Opportunities for future endeavors held in touching distance. Such is the case for the play tonight. It isn’t often that you get to experience a sold out opening night of a French existentialist masterwork here in Utah. Either the crowd adores Sartre (as I do) or the company has some loving and supportive friends (which is likely the case). Either way, the cast gave us their all and the audience returned in kind – laughing at the jokes, commiserating in the pain, and suffering with the damned.
One room. One man. Two women. In Hell (no thumbscrews).
The theatre company’s name, including an allusion to the mythological Sisyphus, connects the production to a philosophical heritage. Sisyphus, according to the myths, fooled the gods, escaped death and therefore was punished for his arrogance. In consequence, he spends the rest of eternity rolling a large stone up a hill for it to roll down every night just for him to roll it back up again the next day. His task is monotonous and eternal. Albert Camus wrote a brilliant treatise on the absurdity of the human condition in an eponymous essay, “The Myth of Sisyphus.” By the end of his essay, Camus posits that though the task Sisyphus must do is pointless, Sisyphus is happy. Camus says that Sisyphus’s acceptance of his fate is supposed to give us inspiration when the universe seems arranged against us.
Sisyphus Theatre Company (STC) is a brand-new theatre troupe whose name and first production are all about the human condition and a willingness to grapple with the philosophical, the thoughtful and sometimes (perhaps oftentimes) painful experience of being human. They show a bravery in theatre that is frequently missed in popular productions (usually musicals in Utah) but is necessary. Their first play to mount is philosopher Sartre’s existential masterpiece, No Exit, about three people in Hell. This is a powerful, thought-provoking play which requires a sensitivity to the text and an abiding understanding of human nature. The fact that STC did this as their first production shows an ambition that immediately needs to be applauded.
Gratefully, the audience is not treated to a painful recitation of philosophical meanderings. Instead, we experience human beings struggling with existence in a compelling story that has no real plot. Unlike traditional story structure, which requires there to be protagonists and antagonists, each character in the play represents their own protagonist and, in turn, an antagonist to others in the room. No Exit is a thinking person’s play, a heritage that has been recently exemplified in works like John Logan’s Red or Yasmina Reza’s God of Carnage. Despite it not being a typical story, the tension builds over time and the audience feels the plight of these three individuals as they seek for empty redemption and whatever slight control they can muster in their shared situation. Instead of the usual Aristotelian structure of beginning, middle, climax, and denouement, we see the characters and their relationships evolve. The evolving of the characters leads to one of the most famous lines ever delivered in a play, “Hell is other people.”
Zach Vayo (Bellboy) opens the door to a single room with three different places to sit. Christopher Taylor (Cradeau) enters the room, fedora on his head, to see that it is empty. He asks questions of Vayo about where the torturer is, the hot pincers, the stretching rack, etc. Vayo dodges all of these questions by pointing up to their absurdity, asking why such things would be necessary. Taylor already has decided he must be in Hell, to which Vayo never denies but never admits either. Vayo’s Bellboy is not buffoonish nor belligerent. He is dutiful and, in his own way, a little creepy without being a creep. His characterization is simple, even pure and he’s a great foil to Taylor’s Cradeau, who becomes increasingly incensed by what he sees as Vayo being rude or purposefully difficult. Vayo may not be onstage for very much of the play, but he is as perfect in setting the mood of the production as he can be.
One by one, the other two characters arrive and introduce themselves to one another. They are aware that they are dead. They know how long they have been dead. And they know how they died. The question isn’t about their deaths, they have come to terms with that. The question and crux is what happens now, what happens next. Inez (Megan Chase) takes it in stride, recognizing that she belongs in Hell and admits quickly that she’s a bad person. Estelle (Madeline Thatcher ) doesn’t feel she belongs in Hell (at least, that’s what she initially says) and believes that it is a mistake.
Unlike other productions I have seen, Director Meighan K. Smith’s No Exit gives the play’s world a noir concept, complete with a hard-boiled journalist, blonde dame, and femme fatale straight out of the mid- to late-1940’s. The actors take on accents and characterizations lifted from classic film noir like Double Indemnity or The Big Sleep. Their commitment to these stereotypes is commendable because they are difficult characters to give levels and emotions and subtlety to. Taylor, Chase, and Thatcher press forward through their archetypes, fighting to portray human beings, and their emotions are as raw and unfettered as you would see in any film noir. At first, I was taken aback by these characterizations, but over time I realized that in noir, the characters fight with the world in a kind of meaninglessness that only devolves into hopelessness and even madness. This is a fantastic choice because, though noir characters hope for redemption, their lives are usually nihilistic and they simply don’t change by the end. Their situation only becomes worse and oftentimes they die. The only difference here is that the characters are already dead, so all that is left for them is to accept their fate as despairing human beings. I love Smith’s concept of existential angsty noir. It just fits.
If I have one complaint, it is with the lighting design. It didn’t work. Perhaps tonight is the first technical run. Perhaps there are problems with the light board that we as an audience are not privy to. Regardless, while making a bold choice for play, the company could make just as bold a choice in maintaining a single (or very simple) lighting plot. The acting and directing give us clear delineation of space and time. More lighting is just more. More is unnecessary. You want design to complement the script and sadly it pulled us away from the moments. We were witness to late queues that are jarring. The script makes direct reference to the fact that the room is always bright, like daylight. It would be a strong choice for the stage to actually get brighter as the show progresses, and to never go to black until the very end.
The playbill makes no mention of who the costume and makeup designers are, but recognition needs to be given. Whomever did these gave us just enough of time period, just enough of an insight into the sordid lives of these four characters through simple but thoughtful choices. It is just the right amount. These elements are a great touch to adding realism to an absurd situation.
“Wouldn’t you like me to be your mirror?” This question is posed as vapid characters mourn the loss of their human creature comforts and wallow in their selfish pleasures. Without any real mirrors and any way to face themselves (and their inadequacies), we become the mirror. We gaze at their souls and see their ‘nakedness.’ No Exit may be three people in Hell, but it is a hot time in the old town for the rest of us. STC’s inaugural flight was a success into the depths and depravities of human behavior. By the end, like Sisyphus, we are happy. We hope to see more from this theatre company.
Sisyphus Theatre Company presents No Exit by Jean-Paul Sartre, adapted from the French by Paul Bowles
Rose Wagner Performing Arts Center, Studio Theatre, 138 West 300 South, Salt Lake City, UT 84101
June 7-9, 2018 7:30 PM
Tickets: $10
*Mild profanity and mature themes. Not recommended for children under 13. No Exit is presented by special arrangement with SAMUEL FRENCH, INC.
Run time: 75 minutes, no intermission.
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