Brutal backlash

By Gwendolyn Rice, The Isthmus

July 27, 2017

In 1933, two French domestics grabbed headlines when they brutally killed their mistress and her daughter. Using a kitchen knife and a hammer, the Papin Sisters hacked away at their employers’ faces until they were unrecognizable and then gouged out their eyes. The incident was seen by intellectuals at the time as a gruesome act of class warfare — the inevitable rage of powerless servants lashing out at their bourgeoisie masters. Many scholars believe the incident inspired Jean Genet to write The Maids, a similarly brutal tale of two sisters trapped in the employ of a mistress they despise. On stage in American Players Theatre’s Touchstone through October 5, the production is a harrowing study of delusion, desperation, violence and the manipulation of power.

The play opens in Madame’s bedroom, a place of stark contrasts thanks to Yu Shibagaki’s evocative set design. The latest high-tech gadgets in shiny stainless steel decorate the cold, minimalist apartment. A white chiffon scarf is draped artfully over a stiff leather chair. Vases full of delicate white flowers soften the hard edges of concrete walls that, if they weren’t so on-trend, would better fit a prison or a tomb.

There we meet the sisters, young Latina domestics whose only escape is to take turns dressing and behaving like their casually cruel mistress, acting out fantasies of revenge. Under the astute direction of Gigi Buffington, tensions and emotions begin at a fever pitch when the lights come up and only intensify, as the wild-eyed women are pushed to their breaking points.

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