So here we are!”, Joseph Garcin states right at the beginning of Jean-Paul Sartre's one-act play “Huis Clos – Closed Society”.

Garcin, who always introduces himself as a "journalist and author", has been led into a sparse room through seemingly endless staircases, corridors and foyers.

Gray walls, no windows, locked doors.

They were soon joined by Inès Serrano, a post office clerk, and Estelle Rigault, a wealthy heiress and society lady.

They're all dead, presumably not that long ago, but they don't remember exactly when, their memory of that is blurred.

Dead as nails, to use Dickens terms, but for different reasons.

Garcin was summarily shot for resistance - he was the editor of an opposition newspaper.

"Twelve bullets in my body!" As Tobias Moretti, who is Garcin in this production, not only mentions, but repeatedly pats his chest and arms as if to reassure himself of the unfamiliar situation.

Inès choked on gas.

Gas that her lover Florence secretly turned on at night to take Inès with her to her death.

But Florence may have survived this suicide attempt, that never really becomes clear, but it still torments Inès, who lends her body to Dörte Lyssewski here.

How Estelle Rigault - dressed all in black (costumes: Werner Fritz), Regina Fritsch as a fine lady even wears a black fox fur scarf - died is not clearly stated.

Probably at the funeral after the suicide of her husband - "shot in the head, whole face shredded" - whom she cheated on with a younger man before drowning her child by that lover in the lake.

The lover took his own life, but not before making a confession to the husband.

There is no such thing as salvation for Sartre

Unsurprisingly, the three get on each other's nerves now, even when everyone knows everyone else's secrets.

For all eternity?

But yes!

As is well known, there is no salvation with Sartre.

"Hell is the others," to quote the well-known statement of this existentialist play.

Not to forget the fourth character of the evening, the garçon d'étage.

Unequaled cynical in the blackest tailcoat with the snowiest white shirt by Christoph Luser, this time he appears under the professional title of waiter, otherwise actually as a servant.

The translation from the French is still by Traugott König, but has now apparently been brushed up a bit in the Burgtheater in Vienna.

With its sober, seemingly neutral,

Director Martin Kušej stages the almost two-hour one-act play on the ramp – behind it a rough, grey, ceiling-high wall made of concrete bricks, an empty buffet table and many pebbles on the floor, designed by Martin Zehetgruber – in the first two rows of parquet floors and in the front aisles in the auditorium of the Burgtheater.

Fritsch, Luser, Lyssewski and Moretti can really let off steam here, the feelings of their characters - apart from the garçon d'étage;

he only shows confusion once when, contrary to expectations, the electronic bell to call the "servants" works - yell out or, that's also allowed here, howl out.

Well, tears don't flow, they don't exist anymore in hell.

Still masked due to the pandemic

Written at the beginning of 1944, premiered in Paris while it was still under German occupation, perhaps not really understood by them, but in any case not only not banned, but even praised, "Huis Clos - Closed Society" is Sartre's probably best-known and most successful piece.

The Burgtheater is actually too big for that in terms of stage size.

Still masked due to the pandemic, there is space for just over a thousand people in the house on the ring - and they enjoy this performance on the evening of the premiere.

Rightly so!

Thankfully, this time Kušej almost completely dispenses with the black pauses that have unfortunately become habitual in his more recent productions and even almost constantly lets a particularly bright light shine over the entire hall from above.

Which heats up the theater unnecessarily, because in Vienna February is currently much too mild for the winter time, but that certainly transmits a certain "hell atmosphere" to the audience.

A coup then succeeds with the very last scene: "Well, let's continue!" says Garcin, and in the bright light the three of them freeze.

After some time, hesitantly, then loudly, stormy applause begins.

It's over for us, but Garcin, Inès and Estelle can never stop.