BRATTLEBORO-Rock River Players presented Jean Genet's The Maids last weekend at the Williamsville Hall. This weekend, the edgy 1947 drama plays the Hooker-Dunham Theater in Brattleboro.
As Hilton Als wrote of The Maids in a 2014 review in The New Yorker of a revival production, "It is an unequivocally literary work," one that inspired the 1933 Papin case in France in which two sisters, employed as maids, infamously lashed out against their employer.
"Much was made of the scandal by certain leftists, who saw the sisters' violence as a blow against class oppression. Genet's thinking was somewhat more nuanced than that of his contemporaries; he used metaphor and narrative to depict a violence that pushed against domestic incarceration," Als wrote.
It's timely, asserts director Jon Mack, who'd had a long career in theater in New York City and in psychology. Having moved to southern Vermont in 2008, he'd been a visiting professor at the former Marlboro College and manager of the Hooker-Dunham Theater for seven years, until 2021.
Mack talked about the production in a recent conversation with The Commons. The 75-minute piece, an amalgam of a few versions of Genet's psychological drama, features Julie Holland and Rebecca Cross as the maids and Adrienne Major as their employer, Madame.
Annie Landenberger: How have you approached this production?
Jon Mack: I'm kind of flipping one thing of Genet's. Genet wanted it played ridiculously. That was, as he said, "all exaggerated." So I have an exaggerated set - it's a very unreal setting in a certain way. But I want each actor to have a chance to really play a character, a real person.
A.L.: What's your rationale for the juxtaposition?
J.M.: It can't quite be real, what you're seeing. But for it to work, I think the emotional dynamics have to be there, which means they have to play it so that this is real for them.
The theme as far as I'm concerned is the effects of subjugation.
A.L.: And that's what addresses "why this play, and why now"?
J.M.: Exactly. And, yes, it does have to do with class - it's about bourgeoisie versus working class, where the person who's subjugated is doing a job for someone else, but their very person - who they are - is being erased.
A.L.: Timely - maybe it always is.
J.M.: And when a person feels they're being erased, they often resort to rather extreme ends to try to assert their identity.
The maids' anger, their violence, their desire to murder their mistress come into play in part because they are really feeling their identity is being erased.
Genet was very clear that it wasn't about maids specifically. It's much more about what happens when one person is subjugating another and has power - and abuses that power to utterly denigrate and deny the needs and existence of the other person.
So to do that, it has to be realistic; from an acting perspective, it has to be believable that these people are characters, not caricatures.
The intensity of this drama allows a lot of room for an actor to really explore. I've given them tremendous freedom in developing their characters.
A.L.: Sure. That's what we hope a director will allow us to do. So they've worked well together as an ensemble, too?
J.M.: Oh, yeah, and we work very hard on the interactions. A lot of exercises, things to get them comfortable with each other. And to work it's got to have a snap. That's really what I'm pushing for.
A.L.: What do you mean by a "snap"?
J.M.: Reactions are quick, changes of mood are quick, the audience - from Genet's point of view, he wanted to keep the audience off balance. Madame asks one of the sisters, "Oh, are you - which one are you?" Clearly, these people have been together for quite a while, but she doesn't know which one is which.
A.L.: Which goes to erasure of identity.
J.M.: Exactly. And she treats them like dirt. She abuses authority. She flirts with them. She acts as though she's going to give them everything, then she takes it back. Can you imagine a maid being given a fur coat, then having it just ripped out of her hand? There's a cruelty to that.
A.L.: Definitely.
J.M.: There is always cruelty when one person subjugates another. And that theme is a microcosm for the world we live in, in which subjugation is prevalent, as is preying on people's innocence, gullibility, and blind faith.
A.L.: What are you drawing from?
J.M.: I was living in Manhattan doing theater and teaching at SUNY Old Westbury. Initially I was doing clinical work for a number of foster care, residential placements, for teenage kids. They were some of the worst places in the world, by the way. Real shitholes. Oh, my god.
A.L.: You saw...
J.M.: Well, subjugation. And you see what happens to these kids. And their families have been destroyed, and now either they're being destroyed by whoever's theoretically taking care of them. And now they're just gone.
A.L.: You've come full circle: With your background in New York's edgy, avant garde downtown theater and your work in psychology, this play is a good fit.
J.M.: Really, it all sort of made sense.
A.L.: And, of course, Genet was writing at a time when the world was all mucked up.
J.M.: Right, post–World War II. And he was the darling of the existentialists, and it certainly has existentialist qualities to it, too.
It's a dark play. I don't want people to come thinking it's going to be a feel-good play. It isn't.
* * *
The Maids can be seen at Hooker-Dunham Theater, 139 Main Street, Brattleboro, Friday Nov. 8, and Saturday, Nov. 9, at 7:30 p.m. Tickets can be purchased at the door (cash/check only), or through rockriverplayers.org.
Annie Landenberger is an arts writer and columnist for The Commons. She remains involved with the Rock River Players, the community theater that she founded and directed for years. She also is one half of the musical duo Bard Owl, with partner T. Breeze Verdant.
This Arts item by Annie Landenberger was written for The Commons.