THE MAIDS. To 5 February.
London
THE MAIDS
by Jean Genet translated by Martin Crimp
Lyric Studio Hammersmith To 5 February 2005
Mon-Sat 8pm
Runs 1hr 35min No interval
TICKETS: 08700 500511
Review: Timothy Ramsden 24 January
Asian setting gives visual elegance to revival of Genet's best-known play.Jean Genet's plays (four of them, though this three-hander's the only one regularly produced nowadays in Britain) impressed mid-century avant-gardistes with their sexual passions - declared in a way they had never dared speak their name on stage before.
In the revolutionary battle Peter Weiss famously staged between Marat and de Sade, Genet would have been in the Marquis's camp. Emotional, not social, volcanoes disturb the world of his plays, naked desire clothed in ritual formality. The externals betrayal, arrest and re-union - are only important inasmuch as they provoke the morbid passions of sisters Claire and Solange.
They are the maids, who play at being each other, or at being their mistress, dressing in her frocks, absorbing her desires, while envenomed underneath with hatred. Yet as part of this Genet sais quoi, power struggles fuel the passion games. Madame has freedom to come and leave. They dress in her clothes. However hated, she is their role-model. They fantasise about the power of being her. Her boudoir is the little world where they grumble about her. News of her lover's fate comes on her telephone; their attempt to kill her relies on her daily ritual.
As Genet suggested, the sisters (though not Madame) are played by men giving a hot-erotic twist to the acting-out of desires. And Nadia Fall's production makes matters more complex with its Indian setting. Bollywood-style scenes of emotional extremes repeat on the muslin spread across the ornate, angled and broken picture-frame that doubles as the entrance in Rachana Jadhav's set, which successfully creates a sense of claustrophobia and order sunk into decadence.
The Hijra tradition, of people with mixed-sex bodies once elevated in society but struck down by Colonialism into prostitution, is invoked in the programme but to this non-Asian viewer does not seem to alter essentially the play's impact. In such a word-heavy piece it's the acting quality that's vital. Naach Theatre Company offers competent characterisations, and sometimes more in Anjali Jay's Madame - a superficial, self-indulgent social butterfly - and Marc Eliott whose Claire reaches to the emotional turmoil underlining apparent composure of manner.
Claire: Marc Eliott
Solange: Damian Asher
Madame: Anjali Jay
Director: Nadia Fall
Designer: Rachana Jadhav
Lighting: Ciaran Bagnall
Sound: Steve Ritter
Video edit: Rhodri Wyn-Lewis, Jamie Roberts
2005-01-26 00:29:15