“Mel’ hawn aħna insomma...” (So here we are).

Thus is the ominous opening of Kevin Saliba’s translation – the first into Maltese – of Jean-Paul Sartre’s existential drama Huis Clos (Bil-Bieb Mitbuq/No Exit) directed for the Spazju Kreattiv stage by Tyrone Grima between January 27 and 29.

Bil-Bieb Mitbuq brought together literary translation, theatre, dance and sound in a contemporary rendition. First performed in post-war France in 1944, the drama concerns a room in hell where three main characters serve as each other’s executioner. They are all recently deceased, and we meet them at the start of the play being ushered into a room in hell by a smug valet (Sean Briffa).

First comes Garcin (André Mangion), a journalist who mistreated his wife and died under the pretence of being a revolutionary. One of his first points of call is to ask the valet where he might find a toothbrush (xkupilja tas-snien) in his new eternal abode.

Inèz (Sarah Camilleri), a predatory lesbian, follows suit. She greets Garcin with suspicion and hostility. Her every utterance is an act of aggression.

Estelle (Antonella Axisa) is the last to arrive – a manipulator of men who murdered her illegitimate child. Still, even in her death, we see her consumed by tyrannical physical desire.  

They pace around a set – a large cube with white netting designed by Adrian Mamo, constructed by Aaron Bezzina – until they figure out what actually constitutes their eternal damnation.

Along the way, they are able to peer into the realm of the living, with sequences captured in film by Ken Scicluna and projected onto the theatre walls accompanied by music by Nigel Baldacchino.

‘Bil-Bieb Mitbuq’ shows three main characters serving as each other’s executioner.

Here, dancer-choreographers Yumo Kominami (Japan), Jill Crovisier (Luxembourg) and Dorian Mallia convene in the liminal space between the dead and the living, expressing this with resonance and conveying narrative complexity.

The play is often superficially condensed to the often-misused line “hell is other people” (l-infern in-nies tad-dinja / l’enfer, c’est les autres), understood as an abhorrence of the endless scrutiny or banal nuisance of others. But Huis Clos (Bil-Bieb Mitbuq) is essentially a play about freedom and the anguish this causes when our own freedom is confronted by that of other people.

This very freedom, equally shared to the same extent by all human beings, is also an element reliably separating us from one another – while human freedom can give us countless possibilities for choice, the freedom of others may present itself as an obstacle to our goals and aspirations, thus stifling once abundant possibilities.

Hell spilled across the whole theatre

Evidence of this is Garcin’s obsession with not being considered a coward. As he peers through to the realm of the living, he is incensed that his colleagues do not pay homage to his memory in the way he expected.

He is horrified that he is not the one to determine the parameters of his reputation – that it is others who decide how he will be remembered or what constitutes his identity, not him.

Despite his protestations – his insistence that he is not a coward – he is powerless against the judgement of others.

He turns to Estelle and Inèz for validation, initially appeased by Estelle who at first says she does not think him a coward, but after Inèz flings some venomous doubts his way, he shuns Estelle for not actually caring whether he is one or not.

Rather, Garcin is more interested in Inèz’s recognition. After all, she knows the cost of cowardice and can therefore judge accordingly.

Inèz knows very well the power she has over Garcin and attempts to use this to her advantage, but her eternal torment is that she can never attain the admiration of Estelle, whom she tries to woo intrusively, uncomfortably. Estelle, in her own right, remains tethered to others and subject to their whims as she was in her life, subjugated to chance and capricious fancy.

Estelle (Antonella Axisa) remains tethered to others and subject to their whims.

Huis Clos (Bil-Bieb Mitbuq) is not an easy play to inhabit, whether as a character or an audience member. The difficult viewing is crystallised near the end of the act when the box composing the set – the room in hell – is lifted out of sight, spilling hell across the whole theatre, gushing around our seats, forcing us to wade in it.

Each of the actors presented a worthy performance at once disquieting and vivid. Axisa’s Estelle stands out for her acute grasp of the character at hand.

I only wished the bronze statue would have been given more prominence. Given the nature of the Spazju Kreattiv stage, perhaps the play would have benefitted from one that did not have a front or back, and was, perhaps, slightly more imposing. The wire coming out of it also proved somewhat distracting.

The play’s direction was acute and sensitive to Sartian existential concerns, and the translation could not have been in better hands. Had it gone through the treatment of one not attuned to the philosophical propositions threaded throughout, then the words composing it would have been robbed of their weight, and indeed, each word in Huis Clos is very weighty indeed.