The first few minutes before The Maids starts, two sisters, Claire, played by College third-year Mia Richardson, and Solange, played by College first-year Alice Rosenberg, primp and preen as coquettish music plays, improvising little bits for laughs. These tongue-in-cheek moments only become more menacing as the dialogue begins.
The Maids, an absurdist French play written by Jean Genet and translated into English by Bernard Frechtman, is showing at the Kander Theater from March 13–16, directed by College fourth-year Olivia Wohlgemuth as her senior capstone.
In a sickly sweet bedroom, maids Claire and Solange push the boundaries of performance, creating perspective-bending fantasies of submission and control centered around their mistress, Madame, played by College fourth-year Julius Kopald, and their subsequent hatred and adoration of her. They conspire to kill her but struggle against the difference between make-believe, reality, and their self-hatred, saying, “filth doesn’t love filth,” and “when slaves love one another it’s not love.”
Claire and Solange call each other different names throughout the play, making it sometimes difficult to discern what is happening, but that is exactly the point. These switches and fantasy games get repetitive and a little draining after a while, but that only reinforces what the play is trying to do — make everything seem counterfeit, exhausting, pointless, and absurd. This show is not for people who get uncomfortable with intimacy and intensity. There is an erotic, incestuous dynamic between the two maids, often manifesting in elaborate battles of dominance and dangerous experiments with the fake and the real, each imagined scenario toeing the line between continued tension and sudden death.
But that doesn’t mean it isn’t worth watching; it’s quite the opposite. Push through the initial discomfort to witness three actors put everything into their roles. Richardson is phenomenal as Claire, embodying a duality between a nervous charm as a maid and towering dominance in her fantasies. Everything she does is with complete confidence. Rosenberg is a formidable Solange — complete with a soft yet twisted love for her sister and an urge to take control. She explores insecurity in her submissive performance as the maid but comes into her own, frequently striking a pose with her arms outstretched in a powerful, all-knowing stance. Kopald’s Madame is witty, manic, and threatening. A certain feeling lingers when Madame is around, and Kopald sinks his teeth into it.
There is such a push and pull in this show, creating perfect shapes and destroying them, creating a message that’s hard to put into words but easy to feel. However, there is one moment where the abstraction of fantasy and absurdism breaks: Claire and Solange lay on Madame’s bed in the dark, singing a song together; it is soft, reverent. Claire stops the singing, saying, “No. No weakness.” Wohlgemuth’s direction gives this scene its gravity, staging a direct link of vulnerability between the actors and the audience.
Every technical element is personalized and plays a major role in creating meaning. The set is meticulously crafted to show how much Solange and Claire mess things up and put them back together. The perfect pink flowers on the floor and dressers are tossed around and hastily hidden again. The floor is an acrid green with a gold ring in the middle, like a trap, a clock with no hands, or an undefined place in space and time. There are three mirrors on the stage, all creating portraits of Wohlgemuth’s stunning blocking and direction. One mirror, however, is fake — just an empty frame. This portal to an unfamiliar space, or perhaps the world outside of the play, invites the audience to watch — or be watched — and consider themselves and their own modes of performance.
The costumes, created by College second-year Cal Avins, are the perfect blend of period drama and slight eccentricity, always partially undone to emphasize the blurred lines between dress-up, performance, and reality. The lights, designed by College second-years Reka Ladanyi and Assistant Lighting Designer Owen Shirrell, follow every slight change in emotion and tension, balancing sweet light pink tones with ominous purples and blues. Experimentation with images and beauty standards would not be as poignant if not for College third-year Olive Raymond, the doll-like finish on each character’s makeup reflecting the consistent use of facades in the play.
Although it may be overwhelming, The Maids is a must-see for anyone looking to expand the bounds of their perception and keep thinking after they leave the theater.
