HOME
Written by Jean Genet
Translation by Martin Crimp
Directed by Lily Sykes
My jet of spit is my spray of diamonds says Solange and this defines this production of The Maids. Director Lily Sykes has taken her directorial experience in Germany and employed it to excellent use with this darkly erotic and uncomfortably sinister game of charades between two sisters and their Mistress. The slow trickle of sand from the ceiling signalling hope ebbing away is echoed in the drip, drip, drip of poisonous words and actions that pervades the performance. Toxicity is everywhere, not just lurking in the contents of a dainty china cup. The Maids is decadent and delicious in its insoucuant disregard for conventional morality.
The main stage at HOME has been transformed by designer Ruari Murchison to create a round central stage that perfectly captures the psychological boxing ring that is this play. Like a Coliseum of gladiators the cast fling barbed words and even the flowers strewn around the stage are pointed weapons that gaily puncture the floor like poison darts. Seated in the round the audience become props for the cast as they interact with us like blank eyed smiling sociopaths.
Screens project quotes from Genet and images of iconic faces such as Hitler and Mary Berry with provocative statements such as good/bad, bon/mal invite reflection on how we perceive our society. These screens also act like surveillance cameras and project close ups of the performers as they obsessively examine their own ever changing and increasingly unsettling images. Like our obsession with celebrity and our own appearance, the characters seem trapped by their own reflections.
In keeping with the duality in Genet’s work, the maids and their Mistress are all played by men. All three are perfectly cast as foils for each other’s capricious natures and are mecurial in their capacity to move in and out of Dom/Sub roles. They share make up and fashion while trading blows and insults like prize bitches in a nightclub toilet or naughty children in their mother’s bedroom. Jake Fairbrother as Claire brings vulnerability and wistfulness to his character while maintaining a sense of powerful sexuality when needed. His beautifully modulated delivery gives a real emotional depth to his performance. Luke Mullins is enthralling as the brittle, desperate and yet imperious Solange. Danny Lee Wynter relishes his role as Mistress, giving her a tender affection for her maids coupled with a chilling disregard for their plight.
Jean Genet experienced life as an outsider and his work relishes and glorifies the adsurdity of life that makes one man an outcast and another revered or one woman a maid while the other is the Mistress. This production of The Maids celebrates his sense of the absurd and pokes fun at our own ways of coping in an increasingly nightmarish world.
Images by Jonathan Keenan
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