PEPPINO'S

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Open from 9:30 A.M. Daily 1247 Polk Street 776-8550

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Sartre Straight

No Exit, by Jean-Paul Sartre, at San Francisco Repertory Theatre, to 8/18. Call 864-3305.

Jean-Paul Sartre didn't rank showmanship very high among art's virtues. There's a story that one night he came to have a drink with the players in The Condemned of Altona, which had been playing to packed houses for weeks. He held up a book he'd been carrying under his arm. It was the printed version of the play, hot off the press. "This is what really counts, the book," he is reported to have said, which must have endeared him to the tired actors standing there.

Whether the story is true or not, there is not much question that for Sartre the stage was a place to work out a proposition, and the San Francisco Repertory's current production of No Exit is a straight-forward rendering of his idea that "hell is other people." There are no high-jinks here to compete with the flashier stuff around town. Director Michelle Truffaut has opted for an unselfconscious, almost minimalist production in order to make Sartre's language the unabashed center of attention. In a way this is brave, and the bravery was rewarded at the performance I attended by what seemed to me rare concentration from the audience.

No Exit takes place in a Second Empire drawing room in hell (looking very Dali-esque in this production) where a man and two women have been placed to torment each other for eternity. They are pretty well suited for their assignments. A lesbian named Inez (Lorraine DuRocher) compulsively tried to seduce a lusty Estelle (Linda Reimer). Estelle sees her escape in Garcin's arms (Kirk Ullery's actually), who is too driven by concern for his reputa-

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It must be hell: Kirk Uller (left), Linda Reimer, Lorraine DuRocher in No Exit.

tion in life to be more than momentarily diverted. The point that other people are hell is not as obvious as it seems. Other people are hell not so much in their inherent meanness. They are hell to the extent that they define how we understand and see ourselves. In other words, hell is the slavery of a life lived without the freedom of self-definition and will.

Inez understands this best and taunts Estelle by inviting her to use her (Inez's) eyes as a mirror for her makeup. She understands her power and their dilemma; she pretty much speaks for the playwright. DuRocher is a striking actress straight of stature, dark, almost stark. She needs a greater concentration of forces in this role, however. Her voice and presence simply do not carry the chilling doom that her character understands.

In general, the actors keep things brisk and competent. They exude. technique in a British sort of way, and in fact, their diction seems almost affectedly British. This is obviously a look and sound director Truffaut has chosen, and it has drawbacks in making the play look slightly like an artifact, something you would see on video in Western Thought 101. Fortunately, she has also chosen to play up the fun that can be had from the character's transparent and desperate maneuvering. All in all, it's a fascinating evening of theatre and thought.

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14 Sentinel USA August 1, 1985