After recent article’s reference to the surrealist, philosopher Jean Paul Sartre a memory was re-awakened from my acting days way back in undergraduate school at the Suny/Buffalo. Interest in Sartre’s work was part of popular culture in those days. although, I am not sure that popular culture was, as yet, even a category. This occurred two decades before his death in 1980.
Our reader’s theatre group mounted a reading of his play NO EXIT. I played Estelle, one of four characters condemned to hell, confined to a drawing room “from hell” and as they try to accept, indeed, in hell. It is likened to being confined forever with your worst enemies. The four of us sat on stools, the stage bare. I wore a long blond wig and we all wore black clothing. Only our heads and scripts were lit as we performed. The auditorium was full of students, professors, family members and theatre fans. A late spring snow storm had raged for two days before the performance. My parents drove to Buffalo from Rochester to catch the gig. They did arrive safely, but the going was not easy along the Thruway and they were distressed but happy and relieved to be there.
The play was first performed in 1944 in Paris. Our reader’s performance was held in the auditorium housed in the Campus Student Union. We jump-start to the final lines of the play, presented in a dramatic short and quick series of alternate lines. My line affirmed the reluctant acceptance of fate with two lines to follow by other characters, meant to dramatically nurture the audience’s quiet anticipation, hesitating for a few moments before offering the expected applause.
The audience was indeed hushed. As I uttered my final lines–“dead?” and “Forever, My God, how funny! Forever.” the dead silence tremored with a loud piercing ring of the fire alarm followed by the directive to disregard the alarm set off by false information.
We, the players somehow kept our cool and did not panic. Instinctively, we repeated the last few lines of the play and were greeted with enthusiastic applause. We took our bows and collapsed in each others arms after lights went black for a few moments.
Audience members soon joined us to extend their kudos for the performance as well as our clear headed reactions, not to run off stage in tears or sit dumbfounded on our reader’s theatre stools after the spoiler disturbance at the exact wrong moment. Our director was elated at our reading and by our reaction to the disruption as well, pledging that heads would roll after the unfortunate noise. How our memories live on, often to be tweaked and relived at moments that we can not anticipate.
My life-long pursuit is to capture life as it happens