SQUARE Peg Theatre and Harrogate Theatre unite to present a new touring production of Jean Genet’s The Maids from this week to June 3.
Genet’s seminal play is based loosely on the real-life story of two domestic servants, the infamous Papin sisters, who in an act of violent rebellion murder their employer’s wife and daughter. The sisters' actions were seen by many in France as a symbol of class struggle and oppression.
Genet takes these themes and builds a whirling fantasy of desire, role-play and sadomasochism around the resentful Solange and Claire and their beloved Madame to expose the absurd reality of existence, which Albert Camus describes as “the gap between people’s hope and the irrational universe into which they are born”.
Square Peg Theatre chose The Maids because the themes of social dissatisfaction and our incessant fantasies and daydreams of something more, less absurd and irrational, remain as prevalent as ever.
The Maids can be seen in the Harrogate Theatre Studio tonight until Saturday; at The Carriageworks, Leeds, on May 26 and the Georgian Theatre Royal, Richmond, on June 3. Box office: Harrogate, 01423 502116; Leeds, 0113 376 0318; Richmond, 01748 825252.
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