No Exit

Through March 13, $10-$15, Curio Theatre Co. at the Calvary Center, 4740 Baltimore Ave., 215-525-1350, curiotheatre.org.

by Mark Cofta

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Published: Feb 9, 2010

theater

"Hell is other people," Jean-Paul Sartre proclaims in his 1944 existential masterpiece No Exit, which literally illustrates this indisputable (at least sometimes) observation.In No Exit, published in French as Huis Clos ("in camera" or "behind closed doors"), a man and two women (Ken Opdenaker, Jennifer Summerfield, Cindy Spitko) arrive in hell. At first, they wait to be tortured for all eternity, but soon begin to wonder if they are each other'storturers. "This production focuses on exaggeration and absurdity, separation and perspective," says director Michael Durkin of his Curio Theatre Co. debut. "Technical elements of forced perspective and a grid-rope wall separate the audience from the action," giving the West Philly theater's glimpse of hell a suitably voyeuristic feeling.

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