Fire. Brimstone. Torture. Self reflection. ‘Life without a break.’ Hell on earth. Sounds like Valentine’s day for the most of us, right?

Sartre’s No Exit, like so many other post Second World War plays, is a masterpiece in minimalism. Garcin (Joe Hunter) a pacifist journalist, Estelle (Heather Simons) a superficial socialite, Inès (Nausikaa El Mecky) a feisty lesbian ‘bitch’, are led into a sterile Second Empire living room, in which they are to remain trapped, never to sleep, never to leave, ‘to live with eyes open forever.’ Expecting a torturer, they soon come to realise that they contain within themselves the power to torture each other.

Dave Brown’s debut outing as a director on the Cambridge scene is jarring and powerful. Descending into Trinity Hall’s Graham Storey Room via a winding staircase, it felt like something straight out of Dante’s Inferno. His choice of cabaret seating succeeds in establishing an engagement between the audience and the actors and gives the setting a very Parisian feel. Framed by Camilla Read’s enchantingly ominous performance on the violin, the production benefits from several directorial innovations, such as the use of three flickering black and white televisions, which portray to great effect each characters dreamlike visions, and exhibit the fragmented nature of the characters and their memories.

The cast was, on the whole, exceedingly strong, with each actor successfully reflecting their character’s inner angst and displaying powerful chemistry with one another. Heather Simons shines throughout, wavering between her character’s initial superficiality and the psychological wreck that she becomes. Joe Hunter, in his debut performance, captures the mundane quality of Garcin’s personality, whose emotional intensity is conveyed in his unnerving stare, although his performance can verge on the wooden. The show was stolen, however, by Nausikaa El Mecky’s witty and cynical portrayal of Inès, who provides a source of light relief in a play that is boiling with tension. She acts with great confidence and poise and projects with her memorable voice a great command of the stage. And let’s not forget Fergal McCool’s understated but suitably sinister portrayal of the Garçon who leads the protagonists into hell.

So for all the lonely hearts on Valentine’s Day, maybe there is a solace. After all, “hell is other people.” But it sure makes for a good show.

Robin Morgan, Yasmeen Rouben, Hugo Steckelmacher