Jean Genet’s often-satiric, sometimes-salacious fantasy-play, “The Maids,” opened last night at the Kranzberg Black Box Theatre. The Upstream Theatre production is interesting and involving, like everything Upstream does, but the play itself, which runs through March 4, falls short of being completely satisfying.
Whether because of Martin Crimp’s 13-year-old translation, or the direction by Wieslaw Gorski, there’s a feeling of sanitizing, of eliminating some of the overt sexuality and leaving the whip in the props closet, to name a couple of moments that softened the harsh effect that Genet seemed to relish. So did a program error that listed Madame as Mother, which asks an unfamiliar audience member to expect someone very different.
Solange (Emily Baker) and Claire (Brooke Edwards) are sisters, rivals and maids in an upper-class French home. When Madame (Elizabeth Ann Townsend) is away, they meet in her bedroom, play dress-up in her clothes and torment one another, with sexual overtones that are strong, though played down in Gorski’s version. For example, Claire accuses Solange of having an affair with a “delivery boy.” Genet’s original version describes him as a milkman, which offers a different image. The milkman, even without his long vaudeville reputation, would be a more regular visitor, older and more able to cope with carrying on with both sisters, individually but simultaneously.
Claire, the older, takes the lead most of the time, and Edwards can be very strong, though her’ many tattoos are a distraction. Solange, showing off her awful self-image, grovels happily.
Whether Madame is real, or just a visible illusion, is up for grabs, but Townsend handles the role nicely. Genet, the son of a Paris prostitute abandoned by his mother when he was a year old, obviously did not like women. A homosexual, male prostitute and thief who spent a lot of time in prison, his disdain for the gender shows early and often.
The acting is good, but the play could be a lot more powerful if the passions were more overt. Jason Coale’s set looks like a very expensive bordello, which is just how it should look.
The Maids, a production of Upstream Theater, opened last night at the Kranzberg Arts Center and will run through March 4.
— Joe