MFG News

From: MFG member Rob Denton

Posted: March 8^th, 2006

Notes: Gazette review below

SMALL CHANGE PRODUCTIONS

presents

A lesbian dominatrix, a blonde princess and an idealist reporter are trapped in a Second Empire living room. Is this a dream-come-true or hell? Is freedom a right or a responsibility? Is quality measured by reason or by passion? Are you who you want to be?

What’s Out There?

            Out There is a fast-paced play about desire and denial, passion and possession. It is the new translation of Jean-Paul Sartre’s Huis Clos. Translated and Directed by Rob Denton, featuring Susan Howie, Stéphanie Breton, Scott Drysdale, Holly O’Brien and Kevin Tighe. March 9-19 @ 8:00 pm at the Mainline, 3997 Boulevard St Laurent.

 Info + Tickets: (514) 488-4762  or out_there@total.net

For those of you who were waiting for a review of the play, here it is from The Gazette March 14th:

OUT THERE DEVILISHLY INTRIGUING

Adaptation of Sartre’s Huis Clos brings responsibility to pass-the-blame era

Matt Radz

Gazette Theatre Critic

Jean-Paul Sartre’s intoxicating notion of existentialism is as close as the 20^th century got to an overarching philosophy of itself.

            The author of Being and Nothingness, which contends with a Parisian’s elegant insistence that every individual is responsible for their own actions and their consequences, also wrote stage plays. Treating play-goers to frothy intellectual champagne was a way for Sartre of giving human forms to his post-Hegelian metaphysics.

            Huis Clos (1944), which contains the century defining line “L’enfer, c’est les autres” (Hell is other people), is the most performed of Sartre’s dozen chamber dramas. It has been variously translated as In Camera and Vicious Circle, but is best known as No Exit.

            Montreal theatre artist Rob Denton has made his own translation of Sartre’s most popular text. He calls it Out There and has designed and directed an independent production of the piece by Small Change Theatre. Subtitled Hell’s Other Name, Denton’s re-reading of Sartre is running at the Mainline Theatre until Sunday. If you’re with us so far, don’t miss this well-executed piece of original theatre.

            Huis Clos is of course a middlebrow jest that goes: A blond, a working-class lesbian and a gentleman of the press walk into a badly furnished room sans view that claims to be hell. (Hell, as it happens, is also having no toothbrush or books to read.)

            Denton and a hard-working, at times inspired cast construct an evening of art theatre that’s never less than interesting. And it’s startling to hear anyone talk of responsibility, much less give it credence as a social force, in our pass-the-blame era.

            For the young director “Sartre’s view of freedom as responsibility is more pertinent today than ever. Through the proliferation of institutional regulation, corporate law and unions, people have surrendered their freedom to take responsibility for their own decisions. The result is a feeling… of powerlessness.”

            Tentative at first, the Sunday night performance picked up considerably as the characters bickered into eternity, moving towards a realization they are condemned to torture each other – forever.

            Lesbian postal worker Inez (Susan Howie) is at once the most evil and appealing presence in Sartre’s hell built for three. Kevin Tighe makes his cowardly lion of the press, Joe Garcin, charmingly repugnant. Stéphanie’s Estelle is as blond as she is treacherous and not nearly as vacant as she lets on.

            As The Host of Sartre’s little inferno, Scott Drysdale has his devilish moves down pat. His symbolic actions add visual interest, even if their meaning isn’t always easy to decode.

Out There: Hell’s Other Name, by Jean-Paul Sartre, translated and directed by Rob Denton, continues until Sunday at Mainline Theatre 3997 St Laurent Blvd. Call (514) 488-4762 for more information.