THE MAIDS

Jermyn Street Theatre

★★★

“Martin Crimp’s translation faithfully brings out the anarchic poetry of Genet’s language”

Most crime dramas (not that Jean Genet’s “The Maids” can be specifically classified as one) these days tend to start with the crime – usually a murder – and work backwards. What makes Genet’s play stand out from the crowd is the focus on the build-up rather than retrospective investigation. A slightly surreal evolution of events and dialogue that is steeped in invention, make-believe and role play. So much so that it is almost impossible to distinguish reality from fantasy throughout. Ironic, too, in that his flight of fancy is based on the real-life scandal of two sisters who brutally murdered their employer and her daughter.

Genet’s story examines two sisters, Claire and Solange, who fantasise about and act out murdering their mistress. But as soon as the house lights fade, we know we are being played with. The opening dialogue – alternately cruel, sharp and funny – between the ‘Mistress’ and Claire has us making judgements on the dynamic coupling; only to discover that we are in fact watching Claire ‘being’ the Mistress and Solange ‘being’ Claire. This playful doubling and verbal smoke-and-mirrors technique keeps us on our toes, but unfortunately prevents us from caring much for the characters. It is all quite one sided too. The maids get to vocalise their frustrations and overblown sense of oppression, while their mistress has little say of her own. It is hard to sympathise with the extreme emotions and motives on display. Particularly when Carla Harrison-Hodge’s excellent portrayal of the ‘Mistress’ brings out the humour so succinctly. She may be a privileged bully, but we can never believe she has earned her fate.

Under Annie Kershaw’s fast paced direction, the cast are all very watchable indeed as they spiral out of control, losing touch with their own realities. Anna Popplewell, as Solange, is the more unbalanced maid – one minute an ingenue, the next a ruthless martyr. Charlie Oscar gives a strength to the weaker sister that layers more dimensions onto her character than Genet probably intended. Their onstage chemistry is captivating as they pace around each other within the confines of the space. Cat Fuller’s simple but clever set design places the action within the Mistress’ boudoir, presented as a padded cell which further plays with our sense of reality. An oversized mirror lets part of the audience see themselves, while the sisters repeatedly gaze at their own reflections. Perhaps we are being told that they represent us, but if so, it is a concept that is as impossible to grasp as it is to relate to these personalities. Nevertheless, the acting is captivating enough to guide us through Genet’s often esoteric writing. Popplewell’s heightened monologue that brings us to the climax of the piece is a tour de force.

Martin Crimp’s translation faithfully brings out the anarchic poetry of Genet’s language. Yet it is hard to disguise the self-indulgence in the dialogue as it spirals inwards into ever confusing and smaller circles. The text is too successful in its aim to be ambiguous and obscure. It is saved by the trio’s performance, that transforms an extended and directionless game of role play into a dynamic piece of theatre.

THE MAIDS

Jermyn Street Theatre

Reviewed on 10th January 2025

by Jonathan Evans

Photography by Steve Gregson

Previously reviewed at this venue:

NAPOLEON: UN PETIT PANTOMIME | ★★★★ | November 2024

EURYDICE | ★★ | October 2024

LAUGHING BOY | ★★★ | May 2024

THE LONELY LONDONERS | ★★★★ | March 2024

TWO ROUNDS | ★★★ | February 2024

THE BEAUTIFUL FUTURE IS COMING | ★★★★ | January 2024

OWNERS | ★★★½ | October 2023

INFAMOUS | ★★★★ | September 2023

SPIRAL | ★★ | August 2023

FARM HALL | ★★★★ | March 2023

The Maids

Maids

The Maids

★

“this shallow and melodramatic take on the play adds nothing to Genet’s original text”

The Maids is a French play, written by Jean Genet and first performed in 1947, about two housemaids – sisters – who have created a sado-masochistic world through which they devise rituals around the fantasy of killing their mistress. This Turkish production has ‘updated’ the story to contemporary London, and the maids mostly speak their native language, apart from when speaking to their off-stage mistress. Their is scope here for a fairly devastating look at the unseen slavery in the houses of the London super-rich, but, alas, this shallow and melodramatic take on the play adds nothing to Genet’s original text, and instead takes away a great deal.

The Maids is a difficult play to stage well; both its emotions and its language are heightened to a degree that removes it from the naturalistic. We are in a claustrophobic imaginary world of sex and power, in which the language continually unsettles, by endlessly see-sawing from overblown Baudelairian symbolism to the filthiest street slang imaginable. The language is essential to the understanding of this play, as it is the oral manifestation of the extraordinary secret world which the sisters have built for themselves over years of living together in stifling emotional deprivation; so it is a nigh on impossible job to engage an audience in this world when 90% of the script (for the Brits in the audience) is read in surtitles, as here. Turkish is a beautiful, rich, expressive language but, in a small pub theatre in London, it seems an exceptionally large ask to require the performers to battle through such a particularly demanding French text for what will inevitably be a largely British audience. It is fantastic to hear other languages spoken on our stages – London is a polyglot city after all – but why not a Turkish play? There seemed no compelling drive to tell this particular story; if there was, it was certainly lost in translation.

The two performers were exhausting to watch, mainly because they were breathless throughout. Relentless panting is neither sexy nor emotionally intense, and it became tedious very quickly indeed. Given that this production chose a difficult language path, it particularly behoved the director to help the performers find a rich physical language to help them tell this story. Frustratingly, the movement was repetitive and full of cliche; entirely devoid of danger or tension. The sisters’ relationship was completely dead; devoid of the bedrock of love and companionship which has slowly morphed into this twisted game of power and desire. Too often, the actors felt marooned on stage without any sense of narrative purpose, and attempted to fill this emptiness by over-emoting. Unfortunately this only added to the tawdry, ghost-train atmosphere supplied by the unhelpful sound and lighting design. The off-stage voice of the mistress was curiously atonal and one-note, and overall the production ended up as nothing more than a dispiriting melodrama, with nothing to tell us.

Reviewed by Rebecca Crankshaw

THE MAIDS

Jermyn Street Theatre

★★★

“Martin Crimp’s translation faithfully brings out the anarchic poetry of Genet’s language”

THE MAIDS

Jermyn Street Theatre

Reviewed on 10th January 2025

by Jonathan Evans

Photography by Steve Gregson

Previously reviewed at this venue:

The Maids

Maids

The Maids

Hen and Chickens Theatre

Reviewed – 15th January 2020

★

“this shallow and melodramatic take on the play adds nothing to Genet’s original text”

Reviewed by Rebecca Crankshaw

The Maids / Hizmetçiler

Hen and Chickens Theatre

Last ten shows reviewed at this venue: