No Exit

The stock line from Sartre’s 1944 existentialist classic is that “hell is other people.” That’s part of it, as one of the newly arrived damned souls puts it early in the play. But it’s not simply the annoyance of other people, as it’s come to mean in the popular lexicon. Sartre’s hell, as illustrated by LiveWire’s claustrophobic production at the Side Project, is other people who see you for who you really are.

A man and two women are escorted into a windowless, mirrorless room. All three are aware that they’re on the wrong side of the afterlife, but their fears of torture, fire and brimstone prove unfounded. Left to their own devices, Cradeau, Estelle and Inez begin to tease out one another’s reasons for damnation. Soon, armed with the knowledge of each other’s sins, the three begin to poke and prod in a truly futile struggle to gain the upper hand. They don’t need mirrors—they’ve got each other to reflect their worst sides.

Dennis’s production is appropriately dark and chilling but carries moments of comic relief (many coming from Hall’s jittery, sweaty version of Cradeau). Perhaps most jarring in the 60-year-old piece is the realization that, placed in a cell with a traitor and a child killer, Inez’s greatest sin was being unapologetically gay. Chicago newcomer Nofs-Snyder’s icy malice, however, makes it clear that Inez is the darkest soul in the room.—Kris Vire