“The Maids” at Greenwich Playhouse
Jean Genet’s troubling story of two servant sisters with murderous intentions towards their employer is re-designed for the 21st Century in The Maids by fresh-from-drama-school theatre company Nomads of Bazaar.
The action centres on sisters Solange and Claire, maids to the flamboyant Madame, who express their frustration and resentment at their situation by acting out their fantasies about killing their boss. Loosely on France’s famous Papin sisters, who murdered their mistress and her daughter in 1933, The Maids is a 90 minute real-time glimpse into the true misery of inevitable and interminable servitude.
The dialogue is quick, angry and often hysterical, and the play-within-a-play setting certainly keeps you on your toes as it blurs the borders between fantasy, theatre and reality. It’s all well put-together, with the sisters’ clever use of a camcorder to film their role-plays giving The Maids a dimension that I’m sure Genet never intended, but that really adds pace and structure.
Camcorder aside the 21st century setting is perhaps a little awkward, as presumably there aren’t many maids left in Paris in 2009 and I think the stilettos and cordless phones somewhat lessen the shock intended. Don’t get me wrong, semi-incestuous homicidal sisters will still evoke considerable discomfort no matter what their footwear, it’s just that the modern styling makes the premise a little shaky.
The two leads have a difficult job but as Simon Cowell would say, they give it 110%, particularly Emilja Ellen as the dominant sister, whose monologues are a one-woman emotional rollercoaster. Irena Grgona’s hysterical Claire could have used a little more subtlety, but she looks fantastic as the submissive (if equally unstable) younger sibling. But it’s Claire Spence’s preposterous yet credible performance as Madame that steals the show as a fantastic caricature of the rich and pointless. Granted her 15-minute, 1-dimensional role is perhaps a little easier than the others’, but full marks for execution and for managing to glean at least two humorous moments from a very dark script.
The colourful but troubled life of Jean Genet weeps out of every word of this play, and it’s not the thing to go and see if your established theatre comfort zone is a few chuckles and a happy ending. The Maids is all about feeling a uncomfortable, shocked and sad, so in that respect I’m sure Genet, whose raison d’etre was to ‘stick it to the man’ long before stilettos came along, would be very pleased with the Nomads of Bazaar’s efforts.
The Maids by Jean Genet
Greenwich Playhouse until 5 July Tues-Sat 8pm, Sun 4pm
Ticket Price: £12 (£10 conc.)