FAIRFIELD — The community of SCC gathered at the Studio G blackbox theatre here on campus on Wednesday for the Opening night of No Exit, initially written by Jean Paul Sartre, directed by Solano Community College student Alex Camerino, and produced by Solano College Theater’s Christine Mani.
No Exit is a one-act dark comedy featuring three new arrivals to Hell: Garcin, played by Ethan Hosking; Inez, played by Lucien Rush; and Estelle, played by Zakiya Ruff. The play starts with three people dying and are sent to hell “while in the original script, hell is a claustrophobic living room set in a hotel” stated by Camerino. In her version, hell is depicted as a BART train leaving from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and the characters, who she wants to see as heroes rather than criminals, can never get off.
At the beginning of the play the train is empty and the audience only sees one seat with a knife on it, creating a sense of expectation. Garcin steps on to the train, seeming like a normal commuter, but he is joined by the BART Conductor who explains that other passengers will join him.
The Conductor leaves and the train moves on, shown as flashing lights appearing inside the train. This created a thrilling sense of suspense, but the visual effect was also a little overwhelming to the audience.
Then, Inez gets on in New York and Estelle gets on from Paris. None of them get along. In fact, they all hate each other.
The theater was filled with laughter, amusement, and surprise, while everyone was excited to see the first production of No Exit. The set was great, but most parts of the play were awkward as each character gave off extreme emotions. For example, Estelle delivered her lines while being scary and bossy and Inez was a selfish rich person.
Inez’s grunge style, cargo pants and a mohawk, fit her aggressive attitude of being a detective towards Estelle, telling her to stop spreading lies. Incez also tries to seduce Estella while looking at her own reflection in the window and confessing to her crimes, making the background eerie. Sitting with others while watching Inez dance against Estelle was pretty cringy.
Most parts of the play were funny while each actor gave off different facial expressions, and poses. It got dramatic when Estelle tried to kill Inez with the knife and then Inez tried to kill herself with the knife. Meanwhile Garcin showed very little emotion.
The set directors added a nice Bay Area twist to the mysterious show, using a BART train in place of the cramped and claustrophobic drawing room in the original production. Additionally, this adaptation was held in a small studio room rather than on the main SCT production stage, with the audience on both sides which brought them into the characters’ experience.
Many in the audience came to support their loved ones on stage, so after the production I took a quick photo with the actors, as guests were leaving.
Camerino started this film to bring excitement to theater for Solano students after being a director for one year. She gave thanks to her student design team including Ezra Ruggles (costume design), Luna Swarner (set design), William Schmidt (lighting design), Jordan Ledbetter (sound design), and Kaitlyn Fontana (properties design).
After attending opening night of No Exit, I would recommend this production to others to get the full enjoyment of the playful and well done set. The direction of the acting is extremely impressive while also having a unique costume design, which were made by the SCT Costume Design Program. The play gave different themes based on each character realizing & accepting that they all were trapped on BART, by the conductor. After attending, the feeling that was prevalent was the signature sense of SCT community, self confidence, and acceptance.
The play runs April 30- May 4 with a Wednesday – Saturday shows at 7:30pm tickets are $5 SCT Black Studio Office
