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The Rice Thresher
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Elizabeth Jardina thresher editorial staff
Then again, that's the point of the play. The premise is simple: Three recently dead people are sent to hell - which turns out to be a mid-19th-century drawing room. No windows or mirrors, a locked door, three strangers. They have each lived abominable lives, and discovering each other's sins takes up much of the first half of the play. Lovett's second production of the semester is acted energetically, but between the disappointing staging and the script that stagnates in the second half, I was ready for the performance to be over. Existential philosopher Sartre wrote for "theater of situations." Watching the now-classic play, it seems that he dreamed up a good idea and three multilayered and interesting characters and began imagining what would happen. However, because the play is so claustrophobically premised, the script doesn't have anywhere to go once the sins of the characters are revealed. All the characters can do is torment each other, and it begins to feel like they're also tormenting the audience. The drawing room is set up in the middle of Lyle's, the Lovett basement. The set itself is impressive, both in the physical details of the well-crafted hardwood floor and in the conceptual set-up - in the drawing room that the characters cannot escape, ironically, there are no walls at all. But the practicalities of the space make the three-sided stage a serious flaw. Lyle's has bad acoustics, and with the actors' tendency to mumble, half the audience is missing the dialogue at any given time. And in a talky play like this one, the dialogue is everything. The acting in the play is uneven but impassioned. A valet (Lovett sophomore Nath Pizzolatto), whose stolid acceptance of the very strange situation makes him seem like an Addams Family relative, leads the characters into the drawing room. He explains to the newcomers that in hell, there is neither fire nor brimstone, but there are also no simple comforts like toothbrushes, sleep or blinking. Garcin (Baker College senior Dave Urban), a "man of letters" in life, is flustered by this lack of normalcy. Inez (Wiess College sophomore Victoria Zyp) is sullen and hostile. Inez drives the group to their ultimate discovery - that they are to serve as each other's torturers. Entering with an energetic burst, Estelle (Lovett senior Reena Chokshi) is a socialite with a secret as dark as the others'. Urban plays Garcin as nervous, slightly unsure, but with a weighty conscience. He never quite seems to reach the fierceness and cruelty his character is capable of, but his unremarkable performance is generally solid. Zyp has high cheekbones many women would pay money for and a self-possessed, comfortable demeanor. However, her diction and volume make her difficult to understand when she's not facing your section of the audience. Her character's disagreeability makes her attempt to seduce Estelle seem forced, but Zyp handles the difficult transition competently. Chokshi's Estelle is flighty, petty and often charming. A fine actress, she plays her wrenching role with admirable naturalness and feeling. If she would speak slower so all her lines were intelligible, her performance would be stunning. Chokshi is particularly hurt by the staging because her facial expressions are a shame to miss. No Exit is a dialogue-heavy play, and by the end, I was tired of the circular conversations. However, if hell were entirely clever and fun, that would seem to be missing the point. If you're up for a little existentialism, hell isn't a bad place to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there.
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