TEHRAN – An adaptation of Jean‑Paul Sartre’s play “No Exit” will be staged at the Iran Mall Black Box performance hall on June 29.

Titled “Frankl in Sartre’s Hell”, the play is directed by Danial Ziabakhsh and built around the idea that “Hell is other people,” a place where you are constantly exposed to the judgment of others, IRNA reported.

Jean-Paul Sartre, the great French existentialist, displays his mastery of drama in “No Exit,” an unforgettable portrayal of hell.

The play is a depiction of the afterlife in which three deceased characters are punished by being locked in a room together for all eternity. It is the source of Sartre's especially famous quotation, "Hell is other people", a reference to Sartre's ideas about the Look and the perpetual ontological struggle of being caused to see oneself as an object in the world of another consciousness.

The main cast includes Danial Ziabakhsh, Sofia Boulhasani, Mahya Oraei, Amirhossein Shabani, Mohammadreza Pishkhani, and Hamid Salehi‑Yousefabad, as well as a number of performance artists.

The Iranian adaptation, in the psychodrama and psychological horror genre, will run for 40 nights. It explores the discovery of hell, while the performance artists create an atmosphere of psychological terror and dread, forming a stage experience that, according to the creators, has not previously been seen in Iranian theater.

Jean-Paul Sartre (1905 – 1980) was a French philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and literary critic, considered a leading figure in 20th-century French philosophy and Marxism. 

Sartre was one of the key figures in the philosophy of existentialism (and phenomenology). His work has influenced sociology, critical theory, post-colonial theory, and literary studies. He was awarded the 1964 Nobel Prize in Literature despite attempting to refuse it, saying that he always declined official honors and that “a writer should not allow himself to be turned into an institution”.

SS/SAB