Maid in France (Reflections on The Maids, Part 1)

When Genet wrote The Maids, he was already far into his own self-determination as a criminal. Throughout his work, he more than embraces the dark poetry of sin: he posits it as a sanctified state. Jean Paul Sartre may have recognised him as a kindred spirit - although an existentialist makes for a bad character witness, what with their belief that personality is a fiction, in any case - but Genet's identification with the wrong side of the tracks goes further than a Marxist celebration of the socially excluded. Rather than reject the spiritual hierarchy of Christianity, he inverts it and makes the most despised the most elevated.

The sisters at the centre of the action- Claire and Solange - spend most of the play investing in role-play and rituals. They switch roles - Claire gets to be the mistress, Solange becomes Claire - outfits and authorities. Insults, even the brutal slap of the whip, become endearments. Death, suicide, murder, deceit are all glorified and the final, confusing, scene has mistress and slave, fiction and fact dissolve into a single, disorientating farewell.

It can be read as a damning indictment of the way that the oppressing class shapes its victims: the maids are at the bottom of the social heap, and, like Genet did, embrace the image of themselves as worthless. One maid possibly fucked the milkman, like a whore. The other has fantasies of being a cool, erotic murderer, whom even the hangman wants to kiss. Undeniably, the maids are distorted, disconnected with the acceptable values of a society that gives power to the mistress and her husband.

And it's based on a real story of a couple of murdering maids. And the left-wingers came out in their support, too. 

Simple, really. It all makes sense. The Maids is a political allegory. The only reason that it gives the audience a headache is the dizzying pace of the character's swaps. Frankly, that last speech is an incoherent ramble - nice portrait of a mind in meltdown, but it's not Shakespeare.

No, wait. Hold on. 

It's a play. Genet's doing that thing to remind the audience that what they are watching isn't real. Blather about "suspension of disbelief" aside, it is difficult to be completely fooled by the action when Genet insisted that the women be played by men. Sure, that might fit into a contemporary drag queen paradigm - threatening women with a sharp wit, perfect - but it doesn't do much to convince that this is supposed to be a serious representation of reality.

And that final speech. Solange imagines the end of the play. It's been jarring enough as she switches from top to bottom, person to person, but now she's jumping on the fourth wall. It's impossible to forget that this is a performance. 

The simple reading of The Maids was bound to fail - the experience of seeing it is like being caught in an opera company's tumble-dryer, and that never ends up with clarity. And for all the supposed sadomasochistic antics of the maids, they are too far out of control for this to represent any reflection of dominance and submission in a sexual context. 

If Genet is having a BDSM session, he has to be doing it with the audience...

THE MAIDS (Jean Genet)

Translated by Martin Crimp

Directed and designed by Stewart Laing
Citizens TheatreThu 17 January – Sat 2 February, 7.30pm