Hell is other people Hell is other people (March 04, 2005)

Why Sartre's 'No Exit' appeals to Dragon Productions

by Robyn Israel

"No Exit" is exactly the kind of play that Dragon Productions loves to stage.

"That play fits into the off-the-beaten-path works I like to produce," company founder Meredith Hagedorn said. "It's a classic that's rarely seen, and that's one of the reasons it was on my list. I don't want to do 'Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dream Coat.' I want to do rarely produced works that have good writing, solid yet flawed characters and challenging storylines."

Considered by many to be philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre's best play, the story centers on one man and two women in a relatively bare room -- from which there is no escape. The play is studied often by actors yet rarely produced today.

"I read it in grad school," director Jane Bement Geesman said. "I loved it because of the existential questions it asks, because of the intense dynamics of the three characters and because it takes place in hell, or at least Sartre's idea of hell."

Sartre wrote the original draft (titled "Huit Clos") in two weeks at the Cafe Flore in Paris. At the time , the city was occupied by Nazi Germany. He deliberately wrote it as a one-act play, so that theater-goers would not be kept past the Nazi-imposed curfew.

"No Exit" opened in the spring of 1944 and was an immediate success. The original production played in Paris for several years, even after the war ended. Parisian audiences appreciated Sartre's subtle message of resistance and subversiveness.

"No Exit" was translated into English and made its Broadway debut in 1947.

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