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No Exit
Verdict: Enjoyable hell
Edinburgh 06 – Greyfriars Kirk House – 7-12, 15-19 Aug 06 – 12:00 (1:10)
There are 3 chairs, a table, a knife. Garcin (Patrick Byrnes) sits with his head in his hands. Inez (Sophia McKinnon) enters. She’s a tall woman, her fists are clenched. ‘Where’s Florence?’, she demands angrily. She assumes Garcin is a torturer.
Inez tells Garcin that she doesn’t like men. He tries to make peace - they must be courteous to each other, to make the best of their situation. Inez won’t have it - she goads him, and shrieks at him for twisting his mouth.
Estelle (Kate Carter) enters. She’s pretty, nicely-spoken, well-dressed. She mistakes Garcin for someone else - but refuses to say who. Inez instantly changes. She becomes softer and kindly to Estelle, and inquires if she suffered. Estelle says no, she was only half-conscious, suffering from pneumonia. Garcin says he was shot because he was a pacifist. Inez says that her lover got up in the middle of the night, turned on the gas and came back to bed - killing them both.
Why are three, seemingly random people, confined in the same window-less room? To act as each other’s torturers. It’s the play that famously created the sentence ‘Hell is other people’.
Garcin admits he was a brute to his wife, and deserted from the army. He seeks absolution for his cowardice through Inez, but she will not give it. He would prefer physical torture, which doesn’t come. Inez turned her cousin’s wife against him and set up home with her. When the husband was killed by a tram, Inez reminded her lover of it every day. She is the only character who is honest about her own deeds and those of the others. Without her, hell would not be torture. That is her fate. Estelle married for money, committing adultery, and drowning her and her lover’s baby. Her lover committed suicide. She needs the affirmation of a man to feel wanted and loved. She becomes the outsider. Having lost the battle for Garcin, her fate is rejection. Angry, she tries to knife Inez, forgetting that they are already dead. They will be together forever.
Kate Carter’s Estelle exudes vanity like a second skin. Sophia McKinnon’s Inez is relentlessly angry. Patrick Byrnes’s Garcin puts up a good fight with the two women who torture him for ever.
Their performances make No Exit a joy to watch – and not, as might be expected for a Jean Paul Satre play - dry and boring. The cast lift the play with dynamics, life, and spark.
Cast Credits: (alpha order): Patrick Byrnes – Garcin. Kate Carter – Estelle. Sophia McKinnon – Inez.
Company Credits: Writer - Jean-Paul Sartre. Translation - Stuart Gilbert. Director – Ben Hecking. Producer – Chris Zegel. Company – Grenofen Productions.
END
(c) Lea Harris 2006
reviewed - 9 August 2006 / Greyfriars Kirk House
Fringe Report (c) Fringe Report 2002-2009
