NO EXIT
by Jean-Paul Sartre
directed by Veda Rouze
WHEN: Friday, January 17, and Saturday, January 18, at 2:00 and 8:00 PM
WHERE: Coastal Arts Studios, 66 South Main Street, Ocean Grove, NJ (in the old Neptune High School, on the 2nd floor)
TICKETS: $20
To buy tickets and for more information please visitwww.blackboxnj.org, e-mail blackboxnj@gmail.com or call 732.737.7671
Without Identity, what becomes of existence, and without existence, what becomes of everything?
NO EXIT is Jean-Paul Sartre’s 1944 existential masterpiece where three strangers Joseph Garcin, Inez Serrano and Estelle Rigault are escorted one at a time in a an enclosed room by a strange Valet and discover they may have more in common than they will ever care to know. Looking back at their lives they discover the misery and torment of their inner demons and the people in their lives who have moved on and discover that they are indeed in the after life that offer no redemption, no mercy and no exit.
Rouze, lives in Barnaget NJ, and attends the Performing Arts Academy of Ocean County. She has directed Ghouls Anonymous by Dennis Gribben for the Black Box of Asbury and will be appearing in Darren DeBari’s Destruction of the American Male in April.
Rouze comments, "We are free...we are happy...we are hopeful...but there is no exit. No Exit is a fully student-run production. Once you enter, there are no rules. You can do whatever you want, but you are not allowed to leave the theatre. The audience is physically trapped, but emotionally free. This interpretation is an experience. If you love it, great. If you hate it, awesome! The only thing you have to do, is exist."
Discussing the youth initiative and his belief in youngsters doing challenging works like Sartre’s masterwork, artistic director A.J. Ciccotelli comments “I think to dismiss young adults as only capable of doing fluff and cutesy afterschool special material is nonsense. I mean, in England the acting students start off plunging into Hamlet. Here we have them plunge into Sartre. I think Veda’s direction is astounding and the level of acting is incredible. Come see for yourself.”
