Friday, March 5, 2010

No Exit

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Yes, yes, yes, Hell is other people.  We all get that.  But what does it look like?   Well, last night I went to see No Exit at the Curio Theatre Company.   Even though I read J. P. Sartre's harrowing little posthumous fantasy, Good Lord!, it must be forty years ago, this is the first time I've seen it performed.  I enjoyed it immensely.

And the answer to my question?  It's triangular with a chessboard-patterned floor, a huge German expressionist door, and a gridwork of black strings separating it from the audience.  Much praise to Paul Kuhn for a great design for an intimate (a total of 62 seats, with chairs on all three sides of the action) evening of theater.


And elsewhere on the Intertubes . . . 

This comes straight from the streets of Babel.  All I can say is, Joshua Allen Harris must be reading my dreams.



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2 comments:

Curio Theatre said...

Paul is a brilliant designer and does all the constructing himself -- he can design my own personal hell anytime! Apparently his preliminary designs for Twelfth Night are so ornate he has had to turn down a role in the play, because all his energies will be taxed in bringing the set to life (and he's a wonderful actor too!)

Glad you enjoyed it!

Richard Mason said...

A good many years ago I appeared in a production of "Don Juan in Hell." We considered altering the glowing EXIT signs in the theater space to read NO EXIT, but we figured we'd get in trouble with the fire marshal.