Huis Clos

Garcin, Inès and Estelle have been brought together in an unusual place for a reason they ignore... Very quickly, they discover that each person's role is to become the torturer of the other two... "Hell is other people. "

"Others can try to objectify me, but cannot steal my freedom. Huis Clos is at the heart of Sartrian existentialism. Once Man has chosen his actions, no turning back is possible. Sartre pushes this idea to its paroxysm: contemplating one's past life and one's absence on Earth is a form of torture for our characters..."

Sartre wrote this one-act play in fifteen days in 1943, initially titling it Les Autres. However, considering Huis Clos a pessimistic play would be a mistake. Huis Clos is a boulevard play with a metaphysical scope; it is to this paradoxical vocation that it owes its enduring success, both in France and abroad, as one of the greatest successes of contemporary French theatre. Man should be able to assume his choices for eternity. Huis Clos thus invites us to give meaning to our lives rather than merely endure them. "One always dies too soon – or too late. And yet life is there, finished; the line is drawn, one must sum it up. You are nothing other than your life. "