NO EXIT
"Intense & very well acted..."
"Great adaptation. Loved it!"
The Cast
A Bollywood rising star with a destitute past and a shocking secret.
A non binary character with a tendency for addictions and promiscuity.
American journalist, investigator and blogger who found himself in a bit of a situation when trying to be 'the hero.'
The Team
Nathan Gaël York
Writer/Director
Sound Mixing
Paul Grieve
Katrina Alexander
Calum Mutch
Make up
Max Brading
Sound Design
Alistair Mackey
Voiceover
Jonathan Masahi
Co-Writer
Cat
How it all started
This project started back in 2015 when Johnathan came to Nathan with an idea. After seeing some of Nathan's work, Johnathan decided to get in touch with him to ask if he would want to work on an adaptation together. Nathan had been looking for a new project and was really happy to get on board.
Nathan – We meet up a few times to discuss how we were going to do this. The one thing we were sure of was that we wanted our adaptation of No Exit to be relevant to the geopolitical climate we live in.
It was a long process for sure. I set on to translate from the original text first myself. I am French and studied theme and version at uni but it’s always hard to find the right words. It's a long arduous task. After translating there was the whole adaptation process.
Jonathan came to me with loads of ideas to work with. He had a very in depth understanding of the play and had put a lot of thought into it. I have to say it really helped with working out what I wanted and could do with the play.
We worked together on character building first. We deconstructed the characters to try a find their essence. Who are these people? What do they mean to us? Where would they stand in today’s world? It was really important to us that the characters be as real and relevant as possible.
After that, most of my work was spent on working out their voices and changing the text according to their new character development. It was a long process but I am really happy with was we came up with. There were many draft, struggles and writers blocks but I am proud of the result.
I really hope we manage to put it on. It’s a beautiful theatre piece and I am so excited to find an amazing cast and direct it. It would be a dream come true.
Staging
The first idea was to have the play on stage like any regular play. But in finding the room, the idea changed. The Cutting Room at the Drill Hall (Edinburgh) is a small room with no windows. It is an almost perfect square and has a wonderful wall of lights.
We always wanted to have the play be more connected than just the public sitting low and the characters interacting on stage. When finding the room, it became obvious that the right approach for staging would be to immerse the spectators in the play as much as possible.
The idea is to delimit a rectangular space representing the tube carriage in the middle of the room. A bit of white tape and some white fabric on the corners ought to do it. That’s where the characters will play around mostly apart from moments in the play when they will walk amongst the participants and interact with them.
We also have quite a few sensory experiences. That’s why we thought of making people wear white overalls. This will also add to the dramatisation – a crowd of eyes all dressed up in white like slaughter house workers. It gives additional meaning to the famous phrase ‘hell is the others.’
The spectators become the props and executioners and help build on the meaning of the action.