  We have noted the similarity between Sartre and Marcel regarding their emphasis on the notion of situation. Although Sartre noted other features of existentialist theatre that formally apply to Marcel’s plays, there are stark differences in their approach to playwriting. Whereas for Sartre the ultimate justification of theatre is political, for Marcel it is metaphysical: it is a question of finding salvation and hope, and safeguarding the possibility of faith. Yet, like Sartre’s, Marcel’s plays staged the specific problems of the age as he saw them, e.g., how the rise of technology brings about a reductive attitude to the world and especially to other human beings, the atrocities of the century, and the moral disorientation of modern individuals. Despite his metaphysical optimism, Marcel’s theatre shares with other existentialist plays a patently sombre mood. He wants to depict “the drama of the soul in exile, of the soul that suffers from its lack of communion with itself and with others” (Preface to Troisfontaines 1953, 35). Marcel’s plays consistently portray a creeping feeling of absurdity that befalls the main characters. It is a forgotten fact that Marcel wrote more plays than any of the other existentialists.