Three individuals trapped together forever in a single room in hell where there are no windows, no mirrors, no light switch to turn off the lights and absolutely no exit.The form of torture is not physical but emotional and mental. Each person is mortified as the truths of why he or she is in hell is exposed to others. There are no secrets and no hiding from the unforgivable acts they committed on Earth. Written by Jean-Paul Sartre, No Exit was performed by students at Otterbein for the weekend of Sept. 26-28.
The Classroom Project is required for all theater, acting and musical theater majors to audition. The idea behind this production is for students in majors such as designers, managers and acting to work together towards a common goal: to produce a show that is separate from the larger productions that are showing seasonally.
These shows have smaller casts and focus more on controversial topics than the shows performed during the regular season.
“(No Exit) is also a chilling portrait of the universal human desires to be known and to connect with others. It shows us that the essence of Hell is isolation — and our only hope of escape is to take off our masks, walk in truth, and open our hearts to each other,” said Melissa Lusher, associate professor in the Department of Theatre and Dance and director of the production.
As part of her teaching philosophy, Lusher chose this cast based on their auditions and to provide them with the chance to grow as actors with roles they normally wouldn’t play.
“The four actors in No Exit are enormously talented, but it has been a special thrill to see them grow so much as artists by tackling characters they don’t typically play,” Lusher said. “One thing I hope they’ve learned is that the process of creating theater is collaborative and fluid — there are always new discoveries to make, new ideas to try, new insights to realize. I hope that the actors have discovered this truth about themselves, as well as every character they will ever play.”
“I feel lucky to have gotten the chance to be under Melissa Lusher’s direction (and instruction in my acting classes). She encourages us to be the best we can be,” said Peter Moses, sophomore acting major.
Moses described his character, the Bellboy, as “not someone you’d want to meet in a dark alley.” More of a freak and not at all human, the Bellboy takes the “eternally damned” to the room where they must stay forever. Angel or demon, the Bellboy remains something of a mystery throughout the play.
“His motivation isn’t mentioned in the script so I had to invent something,” Moses said. “I decided that the Bellboy has the power to save all three of the guests, but of course he doesn’t mention it once. He could save the guests only if they would openly confess the crimes that brought them to hell in the first place, but no guest in hells history has ever done that.”
Junior acting major Mary Kate O’Neill plays a character who is portrayed as “a self-proclaimed sadist who knows why she is in Hell and doesn’t regret a thing”. Blunt and honest, Inez Serrano expects no less from everyone else she meets. Throughout this play, Inez strives to be the strongest person of the three people trapped and to not show any weakness.
Cradeau, played by senior musical theater major, Preston Pounds, is a coward through and through. Inez sees him as the coward he is but throughout the play, Cradeau strives to be seen as the tough manly-man he yearns to be.
Senior acting major, Nina Anderton, plays the part of Estelle. A high-society woman who claims that she is there by mistake and cannot fathom why she would be there in the first place.
“We try to make connections with others, we try to save ourselves, we try to escape pain, we try to cause pain; we try to survive and be content in a place meant to torture us for all eternity,” O’Neill states about her own and her co-actors characters.
“Being in this show has taught me a lot, a few ideas that has stuck with me in particular is that human beings, whether they are aware of it or not, want/need something from someone else. We want our existence to have meaning and legacy,” Moses said.
“This has been a really draining experience but also a really interesting one. Researching this play has taught me a lot about existentialist philosophy and about human nature at its core,” O’Neill said. “It also really made we wonder about what the heck will happen after death. I learned I really don’t want to know.”
