Summer Studio - No Exit

Originally in French, this play appears in English under many titles and I’m curious as to whether In Camera, No Way Out and Dead End, et al. presumably by different translators, are significantly different.  How do you choose which to do?  All the scripts derive from the same 1944 source and this is a play that lends itself perfectly to an informal presentation - one simple set requiring only a single door and an arrangement of three seating spaces. 

The stage was bounded on all three sides by black curtaining, with the additions of a fireplace that had a mantelpiece to support the bronze, and a table on which stood the lamp and knife, all referred to in the script, which also calls for a practical doorway.  This was placed UR and used for entrances as each cast member was shown into the Room.  However, it was also used and abused in the play and I cannot ignore that it was not as robust as it might have been for the treatment it had to endure.  Perfect for a comedy if the ‘locked door’ opens or the frame shakes every time it’s touched but… I need say no more - studio presentation, suspend your disbelief!  I found it easier to accept the representations of the three sofas by brightly coloured covered chairs.  They were well placed for sight lines both from the audience and for the actors conversing with each other.  There were no complicated lighting cues and the overall wash was enough for us to see everyone.  As the door opened each time we heard an inventive soundtrack of ‘hell’ from the other rooms along the corridor, presumably created especially.  It was suitably grim and menacing.

The costumes were carefully chosen to reflect the characters - the scruffy jacket of Garcin hanging off his frame seemed just right for the shamed journalist and the light colours are what he would be likely to have worn in sunny Rio.  The valet looked like a hotel porter in maroon waistcoat, which in a sense is what he was.  The dark glasses hid the fact that the actor would have to blink but also gave him an inscrutable appearance wholly in keeping with the role.  Inez’s day job is less important than how she chooses to live and the severe masculine black and white attire she wore was perfect to denote the self-confessed cruelty of this lesbian. The delicate sequinned evening gown of Estelle suited to a T the hedonistic young woman who was the last guest.  Her handbag was used to produce the lipstick that was one of the small number of props in this play.

Here we have a play that is all talk.  What should the director hang on to?  It has no plot as such to grip the audience and very little happening to hold for nearly 90 minutes the attention of viewers who nowadays watch bite-size television. The simplicity of your design was no distraction so all concentration went on the playing.  Changing the upright chairs into ‘sofas’ by means of stretch covers worked really well and the black door blended in with the black curtains giving a continuity.  The three characters offer a diversity of reactions to the discovery they are in hell and this was apparent from your actors initially.  You moved them successfully to avoid static conversations but I was distracted by wondering why Estelle spoke most of her lines looking straight out front and seldom to the others, even when in intimate moments - your decision or hers?  As the truth of their situation took hold there seemed to be a need for more passionate exchanges.  I should have liked more variety in pace, more rise and fall, and more physicality, especially in the seduction sections between Garcin and Estelle, which didn’t wholly convince, both looking very uncomfortable, as did Garcin’s display of rage.  Not easy to produce a real spit on stage and, as the attempt didn’t work, I wonder if the relevant lines might judiciously have been cut.  The prompt was handled well without disrupting the flow and the cast settled into a steady delivery that for me, and it is only my opinion, was sadly rather slow.  However, full marks for pushing the boundaries and giving us some ‘serious’ theatre, which, if a little rough around the edges, in studio style came across as a diverting and thought-provoking production.

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