Rogue Theater presents ‘No Exit’

(Left to right) Carrie Counihan, Marcel Bruyere, and Pamela Johnson star in Rogue Theater’s production of ‘No Exit.’ Photo by Len Villano.

Take a moment and imagine the following scenario: you are locked in a room with two other people…forever. The lights are always on, there are no mirrors, no sleep. You have no eyelids, for heaven’s sake!

That is the plot of existentialist French playwright Jean-Paul Sartre’s play No Exit – three damned souls – two women and a man – expect to be led to a hell of torture devices and instead find themselves simply together in a room…forever. But that seems to be hell in itself.

Director of Rogue Theater’s upcoming production of No Exit, Bill Bauernfeind, saw the play in college in the late ‘60s.

“It impressed me, left it’s mark on me and I knew I wanted to be in it or have some involvement in it,” recalls Bauernfeind. Since then he collected scripts of No Exit he found in used book stores and finally had the chance to hand them out to a cast and present the play that stuck with him for forty years.

Carrie Counihan plays Estelle Rigault, “a debutante, a society gal,” describes Bauernfeind. “She’s very rich, very needy. One of her famous lines is, ‘A man killed himself on account of me,’ like that’s a good thing!”

Pamela Johnson plays Ines Serrano. “She is a lesbian, but they don’t use that term. She had an affair with a woman and turned that woman against her husband,” explains Bauernfeind. “She is attracted to Estelle, who is attracted to the man, who is not really attracted to either one.”

“Ines is looking for love, Garcin is looking for forgiveness, Estelle is looking for attention,” sums up Rich Johnson. Photo by Len Villano.

Marcel Bruyere plays the lone man, Joseph Garcin, who was executed in his former life for deserting his unit in war. “He uses Estelle to get to Ines,” says Bauernfeind. “But Ines is the one he feels like he has to convince that he is not a coward.”

Johnson’s husband, Rich, provides an insightful character summation: “Ines is looking for love, Garcin is looking for forgiveness, Estelle is looking for attention,” says Bauernfeind.

Although the play is unsettling, Bauernfeind says it all has “good entertainment value. It’s interesting to watch the dance going back forth amongst these characters.”

While rehearsing the play, Bauernfeind and the cast dug deep into the script, comparing the translation with the original French, tweaking a few things here and there, and digging deeper into the script, the characters, and how they might experience Sartre’s version of hell.

“We all went though this mental exercise, who two people would get on my nerve?,” Bauernfeind explains. “Really, it doesn’t matter who it is, being with somebody 24/7, forever, would be a hell in itself.”

Sartre aimed beyond freaking his audience out with the thought of being locked in a room with two others: “It’s an existentialist philosophy that [Sartre] was showing off – the main one being that while other people are difficult to have to deal with, they are essential for us to have in our lives because they define us,” says Bauernfeind. “One of the characters, Garcin, says, ‘You are who you will yourself to be.’ Another character, Ines, says, ‘No, other people are who define you.’”

This concept struck 20-year-old Bauernfeind. “That was very deep and profound then. It’s a little less profound for me now at 66,” he laughs. “But it’s something that stayed with me.”

Rogue Theater presents No Exit at The Depot Performing Arts Center in Sturgeon Bay on February 14, 15, 21, and 22 at 7 pm, and Feb. 16 at 2 pm. Tickets are $15 and can be purchased by calling The Depot PAC at 920.818.0816 or by visiting Greco Gallery & Avenson Photography in Sturgeon Bay.