There's a hackneyed saying that when one door closes, another one opens.

Hugo, the slightly-built and angst-ridden intellectual who is the key figure in this 1948 play by Jean-Paul Sartre, finds that this is at the heart of his problem. And it will have fatal results.

As Hugo (a magnificent performance by Jack Farthing, pictured with cell leader Louis, played by Henry Oliver) confesses in desperation to his political colleague Olga (the eminently watchable Charlotte Cox, right): "I'm just a man who opened the wrong door."

The play, staged this week by student company Oxford Kiwi Productions, is set in the late stages of the Second World War, in a fictitious Eastern European state.

Hugo, recently released from prison, appears at Olga's flat to make sense of his life after assassinating Proletarian Party official Hoederer (played with an engaging grittiness by Nicholas Bishop) - freedom, it seems, is a dizzying experience.

We know who is the killer and who the victim, but questions linger about the motive, even when Hugo's 'backstory' is recreated - and he is more confused than anyone.

This translation, by Kitty Black, upholds Sartre's claim to be a writer first and a philosopher second. It is existentialist in tone, and there is plenty of fast-paced, taut dialogue about anxiety, death and the nature of choice.

Despite the weighty content, and the running time of three hours, including an interval, the drama was sustained. I was pleasantly surprised at the wittiness of the script, which was laced with dark humour.

For instance, on being told that probably he will be responsible for his father's death, Hugo retorts: "It's probable that he was responsible for my birth, so we're quits."

There was some splendid choreography too between the spindly Hugo, his coquettish wife Jessica (Claire Palmer) and Hoederer's hulking bodyguards Georges (Tom Cartlidge) and Slick (Nick Bowling).

Effort has gone into the stage design and lighting, which paid off, but the one criticism that could be made - on Wednesday's opening night - concerned delivery.

Even sitting only a few rows from the front, I occasionally strained to the hear the dialogue, while other sound effects were absurdly enhanced - when characters poured whisky, it sounded like a gushing waterfall.

If you like your political drama to be passionate and to go with a bang (or two), you have until tomorrow night.