An archive of blog entries about plays and theatre production.
The Weekly Play
The Wednesday Play: In Camera (1964)
Time for a little bit of culture. Hell, it has been remarked, is other people. In fact, it was Jean-Paul Sartre who remarked that – kind of – in his 1944 existentialist play Huis Clos. ‘L’enfer, c’est les autres’ as is actually remarked is a bit more involved than the literal idea of the nasty afterlife being spending eternity with others, but that is exactly what happens in Huis Clos, in which three damned souls, Garcin, Inès and Estelle, are brought to the same room in Hell by a mysterious valet. There they discuss the crimes that resulted in their damnation, and things escalate before their final realisation of the nature of their torment.
In 1964, director Philip Saville, who went on to win a BAFTA for Boys from the Blackstuff, adapted and directed Stuart Gilbert’s English-language version of Huis Clos for The Wednesday Play as In Camera – ironically, the closest ‘English’ translation you’re going to get of Huis Clos. And you want to know who starred in it?
Only Harold bloody Pinter, that’s who.
Enjoy!