Review: No Exit at Domy Books [Theatre]

The newness favored in the Poison Apple Initiative staging involves casting Natalie Navar as the traditionally-male Valet, pulling a fiercely contemporary performance out of Helyn Rain Messenger's Estelle, and, perhaps most intriguingly, performing the entire play with the house lights up. The rest—from the stage design, to a disappointingly one-note performance from the usually-excellent Jen Brown as Inez, to an attempt at modernizing and localizing some of the time-and-place specifics of the text that flat out doesn't work—is frustratingly similar to what one might expect from every other production of the source material. (A quick Google image search for "No Exit" finds publicity stills from a handful of other productions that used a "stark white Hell" motif.)

The play, a philosophical treatise on the nature of Hell, involves a man (Rommel Sulit's Garcin) locked in a room with two women (Brown's Inez and Messenger's Estelle), and the realization that, in lieu of a professional torturer, they've all been placed there to torture one another. After a strong opening in which Navar, as the Valet—a role which, in one of the more fun and interesting choices of the evening, she seems to play as, roughly, a Craigslist-style apartment locator—teases Garcin about the way the existence before him fails to resemble his stereotypes, the others are brought in, and the action starts. Inez, a proudly "cruel" woman, needles at Garcin and, later, at the young socialite, Estelle. As all of the characters want something from the others, the tense, dynamic potential in the script is obvious.

It's frustrating, then, that it frequently manifests itself as Brown standing off to the side of the stage with a sinister grin or an evil cackle, delivering lines flatly. Sulit, as Garcin, is a little more nuanced, but as he struggles with the mouthfuls of translated French dialogue, it's difficult to get a strong read on the character. Messenger is the only performer onstage who offers a genuinely complex performance, by turns sympathetic, generous, and, ultimately, as corrupt and heartless as the others. Similarly frustrating are the attempts at modernization that fall flat: Garcin (Carboni keeps the original French name, rejecting the common Americanization of the character as Vincent Cradeau) is now based out of San Francisco, but he's still executed by firing squad for refusing to be drafted to fight the war. It's details like this that are maddening, and, rather than making the text feel as alive and vital as Carboni obviously hopes, serve to highlight only that even a play about philosophy can come off as dated if the references are inconsistent.

The biggest problem with this production is that the give-and-take between the characters that's at the heart of No Exit never quite manifests. In the Poison Apple Initiative interpretation, Inez is constantly going after the others, without ever truly exposing herself as vulnerable. Garcin speaks of being obsessed with a certain brand of manhood but otherwise mopes through the piece, never anything but vulnerable. Again, it's only when Estelle is the stage's focus that we're able to see the role that each character is intended to play: both tormentor and tormented.

With all of that in mind, however, there are moments during which the dark manic glee of Sartre's original work shines through. The choice of Navar as the Valet was a good one, and she lends an air of professionalism to the role, in a refreshing turn from the usual casting as a bellboy. The constantly-on house lights reflect some of the themes of the play itself nicely, reminding audiences that there's not very much at all separating them from Carboni's vision of Hell. And the sheer exasperation that Messenger brings to Estelle as she endures the torment of Garcin and Inez is a welcome touch of subtlety. It may not be quite enough to totally redeem the Poison Apple Initiative's staging of the play, but maybe that's the point—after all, who goes to see No Exit hoping to find redemption?