No Exit is basically about three people who are trapped in hell. Over the course of the play we find out why they are in hell and why they may be specifically trapped with each other. I enjoyed it and I thought to myself that if I had to be trapped with two other people who pushed my buttons it most certainly would be worse than the traditional image of hell. I even thought about the people with whom I would absolutely NOT want to be trapped.
The Respectful Prostitute is a short play about a lady of the night who has morals. It is set in the Deep South in the late 1950s. The night prior to the start of the play, a drunken white man murders a black man. The black man's friend runs off in order to avoid being killed too. The prostitute witnesses all this. The drunken white man claims that the men were raping the white woman so he, naturally, had to kill. The prostitute, however, tells a different tale and refuses to lie. She is from "up North" and thinks it's despicable how things are run in the South. Turns out that the white man is from a political family with a lot of power and they step to try and persuade the prostitute to lie. I enjoyed this play too. I might even say I liked it more than No Exit. I thought it was very telling that even a man who was not American could so clearly see how America worked at the time.
Both plays are short so you could easily read both in one sitting if you have some time on a weekend and want to delve into the world of theatre.
