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French play ‘No Exit’ at the ADC Theatre Cambridge

Published on 05/12/22

Some of our Year 13 students went to see the French play ‘No Exit’ by Jean-Paul Sartre at the ADC Theatre in Cambridge and they really enjoyed it.

No Exit follows three people who find out hell is a room full of nothing but each other. The following review is written by Year 13 student Marc.

The play ‘Huis Clos’ or ’No Exit’ by Jean-Paul Sartre was an intriguing play. It captures Sartre's existentialism in a really engaging plot and is superbly done. It certainly made me think about his beliefs, which advanced my personal worldview.

The piece features three characters who are locked in a room with no mirrors. Throughout the play, it becomes clear what Sartre's is attempting to convey. ‘L'enfer, c'est les autres’ or ‘hell is other people’ is a quote that still resonates with me, implying that you can tell who you are by how other people perceive you. But, in Sartre's opinion, it is necessary to break free from this dependency because other people might make you feel weak or fragile.

Overall, I highly recommend this play since it is performed in an unconventional manner, with a strange love triangle amongst the characters making it exciting to see while also giving you a lot to think about in terms of how society works nowadays.