Set on a humid, late-summer night in the latter half of the 1940s, this rendition of Jean Genet's twisted tale of class rebellion evokes a context reminiscent of post-WWII New Orleans. THE MAIDS, like many of Genet's works, tells the story of individuals desperate to break out of the suffocating confines they were born into.
Sydney Theatre Company returns to Lincoln Center Festival with Cate Blanchett, Isabelle Huppert, and Elizabeth Debicki in Jean Genet’s The Maids. Based on the true story of the infamous Papin sisters who brutally killed their employer and her daughter, Genet’s play delves into the rituals of the siblings Claire and Solange—played by Blanchett and Huppert—as they take turns playing both sides of the power divide and plot the demise of the domineering Madame (Debicki).
As Jean-Paul Sartre describes in his introduction, "The most extraordinary example of the whirligigs of being and appearance, of the imaginary and the real is to be found in Genet's The Maids...Two maids both love and hate their mistress. They have denounced her lover to the police by means of anonymous letters. Upon learning that he is to be released for lack of proof, they realize their betrayal will be discovered, and they try to murder Madame. They fail and want to kill themselves. Finally, one of them takes her life, and the other, left alone and drunk with glory, tries, by the pomp of her posturings and language, to be equal to the magnificent destiny that awaits her.
PERFORMANCE SCHEDULE:
TUES 7:30 PM
WED 2 & 7:30 PM
THURS 7:30 PM
FRI 7:30 PM
SAT 2 & 7:30 PM
SUN 2 PM
