Jean-Paul Sartre’s No Exit was released as Huis Clos on the Parisian stage in 1944. The lauded French playwright’s piece was subsequently translated into English and made its Broadway debut in 1946. Re-envisioned, reiterated and reshaped countless times over the years, the nucleus and setting of the play have ever remained the same, neatly summed up in the famous quote: “Hell is other people” (L’enfer, c’est les autres). The play traditionally features the Valet and three ‘guests’, Cradeau, Inez and Estelle. Showcasing these four, the work depicts how comfort is not always found in the company of others – especially if those others are carefully chosen in order to aggravate and accentuate one’s own misgivings and fears. Another focal point of the modern masterpiece is each guest’s obsession with what people are thinking and saying after their respective demises, or “absence” as the players prefer to refer to their state, paralleling man’s fear of death and being forgotten.
