When planning the 2016-17 play season at Mt. Blue, MBTC director Deborah Muise wanted to give Thompson an opportunity to continue to develop his skills as a director since it’s something that he says he’s going to study next year at Wheaton College. In the preliminary discussion of shows he wanted to direct, Thompson continually came back to “No Exit” as really his only choice. While this is typically a college or professional theater choice, Thompson maintains that the existential concept of the play is “deeply agitating, profound and something that high school students can relate to.”
His actors, Rowan Jellison (Garcin), Maggie Murray (Estelle), Julia Lowell (Inez), and Abigail McCarthy (the Valet), have indeed related to the show, taking the sophisticated dialogue, characters, and themes in stride, rehearsing roughly four afternoons a week since January.
Thomson’s interpretation and familiarity with the show have encouraged the students to really stretch themselves and develop their acting.
The play tells the story of three souls damned to hell. This is not the typical fire- and-brimstone or torture chamber concept of hell. Instead the three find themselves in a virtually bare room eventually revealing what landed them in this torment. Ultimately there is a sort of love triangle that develops, even as they slowly realize just how hellish their situation is.
“‘No Exit’ has fascinated and frightened me,” says Thompson. “I fell in love. It is both a chilling drama and a philosophical experiment in one package.”
