No Exit is a 1944 existentialist play by Jean-Paul Sartre, originally published in French as Huis Clos (meaning In Camera or "behind closed doors"). English translations have also been performed under the titles In Camera, No Way Out, and Dead End. Huis Clos was first performed at the Vieux-Colombier in May 1944, just before the liberation of Paris in World War II.
The play features only four characters (one of whom, the Valet, appears for only ...
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No Exit is a 1944 existentialist play by Jean-Paul Sartre, originally published in French as Huis Clos (meaning In Camera or "behind closed doors"). English translations have also been performed under the titles In Camera, No Way Out, and Dead End. Huis Clos was first performed at the Vieux-Colombier in May 1944, just before the liberation of Paris in World War II.
The play features only four characters (one of whom, the Valet, appears for only a very limited time), and one set. No Exit is the source of perhaps Sartre's most famous quotation, "Hell is other people." (In French, "l'enfer, c'est les autres"). It has been adapted in cinema many times, notably in 1954 by Jacqueline Audry.
The play begins with the Valet leading a man named Joseph Garcin into a room that the audience soon realizes is in hell (hell may be a gigantic hotel, in light of the "rooms and passages" mentioned in the play). The room has no windows, no mirrors, and only one door. Eventually Garcin is joined by Inès...
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