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Theatre

No Exit to Portland

Tim Madigan watches a performance of Jean-Paul Sartre’s best-known play, and learns about Anguish.

“I’ll be your mirror/Reflect what you are/In case you don’t know” – The Velvet Underground

For over twenty years now I have been using Jean-Paul Sartre’s 1944 play No Exit in my Introduction to Philosophy classes, and yet in all this time I have never seen the play itself performed. Imagine my surprise then, when on a recent trip to Portland, Oregon I read in the local paper there that the Imago Theatre was putting on a performance of this seminal work of existentialism. I had a moral dilemma – should I go to the academic conference I was in Portland for, or should I play hooky, miss a few sessions and go see No Exit instead? Since we are nothing but our choices, I jumped into a cab and headed for Imago. Jean-Paul would have wanted it that way.

It’s fitting to see No Exit in 2005, the year of Sartre’s centenary.

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