NO EXIT

 

 

 

No Exit by Jean-Paul Sartre. 

Directed by Céline Oudin. A Mockingbird Too Production. Mockingbird Theatre Company and Acting Studio. Belconnen Arts Centre. April 14-17

CAST: Garcin – Eli Narev. Inez – Victoria Tyrell Dixon. Estelle – Phoebe Chua. The Valet – Peter Fock

PRODUCTION TEAM: Director – Céline Oudin  Assistant Director – Sophia Castello Producer – Chris Baldock Lighting Design – Rhiley Winnett and Céline Oudin Sound & Projection Design – Céline Oudin. Set Design & Realisation – Céline Oudin & Chris Baldock Stage Manager and Lighting, Sound & Projection Operation – Sophia CastelloCostumes – Céline Oudin Props – Ben Castle, Shamus Moore and Céline Oudin Intimacy coordination – Steph Evans.Publicity & Photography – Chris Baldock

Reviewed by Peter Wilkins

Victoria Tyrell Dixon as Inez. Eli Narev as Garcin

 

It  is almost thirty years since I watched a student production of Jean-Paul Sartre’s existential play No Exit. At the time it seemed an ideal piece for three student actors and their student director. It was written for three actors and observed Aristotle’s unities of time, place and action. It was therefore quite simple to stage and an excellent vehicle for the theatre students.

Eli Narev as Garcin. Peter Fock as The Valet in NO EXIT

It was therefore with some interest that I went to see the production staged by Mockingbird Too, Mockingbird Theatre and Acting Academy’s second tier arm for emerging artists. It should provide the best possible opportunity for members of the production to learn and develop their skills. In the case of No Exit, the production offered an opportunity for emerging director Céline Oudin to demonstrate her skills as a director. To achieve the best possible result it is important that an emerging director is given the best possible conditions to achieve the best possible result. Oudin is fortunate to have as a mentor Mockingbird Theatre’s Artistic Director Chris Baldock. In this instance she also has the support of a strong cast in the three roles of Inez, Garcin and Estelle. Victoria Tyrell Dixon is a highly experienced and renowned Canberra actor whose performance of the lesbian Inez commands immediate attention. Eli Narev gives a most credible performance as the guilt ridden wife beater and cowardly defector and Phoebe Chua provides the right degree of vain, but fragile superiority as the London socialite Estelle.

 

Phoebe Chua as Estelle in NO EXIT

Director Oudin’s task is also assisted by the relative simplicity of the setting and the action. In an attempt to emphasize the universality of Sartre’s play, Oudin has furnished the room with three sofas that the Valet (Peter Fock) refers to as items from IKEA. It is far from the original 1944 production that stipulated Second Empire furniture and I felt that there could have been some comical irony if the furniture had come from Freedom Furniture, given that the three characters are destined to spend eternity together in this one room from which they may never exit. An assumedly immovable bronze statue purported to be a Jeff Koons’ dog seemed more like a painted balloon dog from the National Folk Festival. Perhaps it would have been helpful to consider the original stage directions more literally. In any case Oudin and her actors have given careful attention to the characters and their circumstance.

Victoria Tyrell Dixon (Inez). Phoebe Chua (Estelle). Eli Narev (Garcin) in Jean-Paul Sartre's NO EXIT

 We learn quickly that each character has been ushered by the valet into one of the rooms in Hell, allocated to the dead. Each has committed a crime that condemns them to an eternity from which there is no escape. Inez has seduced her cousin’s wife, resulting in the cousin’s death. Garcin, a wife beating journalist has deserted during wartime. Estelle has killed her newborn, leading to her former lover’s suicide. Each arrives, expecting to be tortured for their crimes, only to discover that they are the torturers, assembled to torment each other in Sartre’s moral judgement. Their eternal confinement turns each one on another, while also allowing them to see the consequences of their deeds in the world that they have left behind.  In Sartre’s philosophy Hell is other people.

No  Exit has been regarded as a seminal work that at the time of its first performance towards the end of the second world war appeared as a lightning bolt of theatrical innovation. At the final matinee performance I attended No Exit appeared somewhat dated, and the ideas no longer startlingly revelatory. Nonetheless as a psychological study of human behaviour, Mockingbird Too’s studio production was engaging and entertaining in a thought provoking way with interesting and believable performances by the cast and  clear and confident direction by Oudin. A stronger sense of cruelty might have made this production more riveting,  befitting the torturous entrapment in a personal Hell within and without.

If this is the kind of work that we can come to expect from Mockingbird Too’s emerging artists, then I look forward to future productions of such high standards.