Walking into a small black-box theater with a program crediting no designers, no stage manager, no technical crew of any kind other than the directorial team can make seasoned theater goers leery of what they’re about to encounter. You know right away that set is going to be simplistic, lighting and sound cues minimal, and costumes likely pulled from the actors’ own closets. All of which means if this is going to be a good production, there’s little to hide behind. What it tells you is that how good a time you’re about to have is going to boil down to two main factors – how good is the script and how good is the cast.

In the case of No Exit, presented at the NuBox at the John DeSotelle Studio, the script is a given. Jean-Paul’s Sartre’s piece remains a classic, decades after its premier. Three strangers trapped in a room with nothing but three couches, a statue of an angel, a letter opener, and themselves. There’s a reason the line “Hell is other people” has become so often quoted – Sartre used it to sum up the Hell he created for his three characters perfectly. They are three people perfectly crafted to drive each other mad with an eternity to spend together and no reprieve available for even a second. Hell isn’t physical pain and torture – it’s the agony of waiting, knowing, and being stuck with people you cannot help but clash with. It’s a “tickle that never hurts enough”. They pick and pick and pick at each other relentlessly. They can’t help it. Human curiosity or their own individual natures demand it.

So if the script is solid, that leaves the cast. Connor Wilson as Garcin, Amie Margoles as Inez, and Mandi Sagez as Estelle make up the room’s three inhabitants, with Theoger Hansen as the Valet, more than capably rise to the occasion. Wilson is charming and compelling, even when Garcin is admitting to the ways he’s been a cad, for lack of a better word. Garcin’s concerns about being a man and not being viewed as a coward seem dated in early 21st century with contemporary societal views on gender roles, but Wilson handles the material well, presenting a man who wants assurance about how he’ll be seen and remembered by others. Margoles’ Inez is fierce if capable of throwing a fit when things don’t go her way, and Margoles definitely captures the posture of someone used to being able to command a room. Sagez was interesting to watch as Estelle, seemingly desperately clinging to Garcin but used to being able to use what people expected to see in her to get what she wanted out of them. As the valet, Hansen was imposing and inscrutable. The opening between the valet and Garcin was fascinating. The cast, even at the weakest points, had a strong ability to keep the audience engaged.

The production was directed by Alice Camarota. It’s clear she had a strong idea of what she wanted to do with the show and what she interpreted it as saying. Her blocking had the three actors constantly moving around the stage, sometimes it seemed they were rarely seated on their designated sofa, the frantic pacing of caged prisoners struggling to internalize the fact that there is no place left to go.

No Exit remains a riveting play and it’s clear that you don’t need a lot of expensive bells and whistles to do it justice. All you need is a team that can keep the audience trapped in a room completely engrossed for an hour or two.