THE MAIDS

Tue 19 - Sat 23 October 2021 at 7.30pm
Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Sheep Street, Northampton NN1 3NL

Photo gallery

There's no getting away from the fact that The Maids is a difficult play. But it is also one of the seminal plays of Twentieth Century theatre.

In it, Genet wants the audience to be - I was going to say shocked but I think surprised may be a better word.

He wants us to question the assumptions that we normally take for granted. Following that, he shows us all the things about our lives which we usually keep hidden: how we are driven by desires - sex, love, hatred, envy, resentment, the sense that we're not good enough, feeling that other people have it much better than we do.

The director, Rob Kendall, knows his business because with the help of his three actors, he teases all those things out. First, and most obviously, the modern notion - hotly debated at the moment - of what constitutes gender.

The play opens on a set which, considering there were limited resources, brilliantly signified 'opulence' (no £85,000 budget here!). And onto the stage come two male servants dressed in a way that many modern male restaurant waiters or coffee shop baristas are dressed. They even have 'male' aprons.

But wait a minute - they are wearing eye shadow (first surprise). That's unusual. And then they are role-playing two women (second surprise). But they are not using stereotypical 'feminine' gestures like two blokes would do if they were impersonating women (third surprise).

So are they men or are they women? Or, as one member of the audience when I saw it loudly commented, "I didn't realise it was about gay people" (fourth surprise/question). So are gay men like women? Or something else?

From the start, Anthony Burgess as Claire and Tom Rose as Solange commanded the stage, taking us through the twists and turns of Genet's dialogue.

Daniel Burrows, also commanding the stage, "she" is obviously in drag, heavily made up, with a wig and typically 'drag' gestures.

Lack of space prevents me from taking us through all of Genet's other surprises, but suffice it to say, Rob's production provided a stimulating and thought-provoking evening.

I saw it on the first night and there were the inevitable tiny teething problems which are quickly ironed out as the run progresses. I know that these are far more upsetting for the actors than for the audience - a prompt is forgotten by the audience after a few seconds whereas an actor might agonise over it for hours. I mention this only because I want to pay tribute to the wonderful Ingrid Heyman on continuity. I was sitting opposite her so could see the intense concentration she maintained and then the quiet but clear way she voiced a reminder to the actor.

I've also not talked about Weekes Baptiste's lighting design or Robert Vaughan's operation of the same which so enhanced the set.

Nor have I mentioned Pam Mann's superb costumes which struck exactly the right note within this strange milieu of the play.

And, of course, Clare Brittain, silently and unseeingly organising everything brilliantly backstage.

My congratulations to you all. The Maids is a play I've known for years but never seen on stage. I'm glad I saw this production.

The Maids is a double first for Masque as we've not performed this play before, or for that matter, a Jean Genet play.

The Maids was Genet's first play to be published in English, in 1956, having previously been performed in French and is a piece based on a true story that rocked France in the 1940s.

As a theatrical piece, the style is also based on the Theatre of Cruelty where what the characters say to each other is the driving force of the plot, rather than physical action.

The two Maids take against their 'Madam' and plot to kill her but, at the same time, enact out their fantasies of being the 'Madam' themselves and, for that matter, take on each other's names and identities. It leads us to question the complex relationship between the three and what is fact and fiction.

The play is a three-hander with the two Maids and their Mistress, and has been performed by three men as well as females as originally cast in the 1950s Royal Court, London, production.

For this production, the roles will be taken by male actors to further the divisions between their obsessions and their grasp on reality.

For Masque, Daniel Burrows will play the 'Madam' with Tom Rose and Anthony Burgess as the Maids.

This production is directed by Rob Kendall. He has also directed: A Christmas Carol (2018), Hamlet (2018), The Bacchae (2018), Henry V (2016), The Importance pf Being Earnest (2016), The Lion in Winter (2015), Becket (2014), Troilus and Cressida (2014), Margot (2013), Nicholas Nickleby (2012), Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (2012), Romeo & Juliet (2011), Great Expectations (2010), The Cherry Orchard (2010), A Midsummer Night's Dream (2009), Trainspotting (2008), Mother Courage And Her Children (2007), Twelfth Night (2005), Bent (2004), Hell Cab (2004), Murder in the Cathedral (2002), A View From The Bridge (2002), Entertaining Mr Sloane (2000), East (1998), A Streetcar Named Desire (1997) and Antony and Cleopatra (1996)