Theatre / The Maids, by Jean Genet, translated by Martin Crimp, directed by Caroline Stacey. At The Street Theatre until June 8. Reviewed by JOE WOODWARD.

In the 1970s I saw a production of Lindsay Kemp’s Flowers based on Jean Genet’s novel Our Lady of the Flowers. It changed my life.

Seeing The Maids at The Street Theatre performed with such exquisite skill and temperament by Christina Falsone, Sophia Marzano and Natasha Vickery under the direction of Caroline Stacey certainly reinvigorated my fascination with Jean Genet’s work.

This production animates the disturbing undercurrents of power relationships and their ambiguous psychological results; the extremes of human destruction become ritualised into a rebellious undercurrent of mundanity.

While essentially, a dark absurdist comedy, The Maids takes us into a socially constructed nightmarish world of a constrained humanity. Rituals are created to make sense of one’s own incarceration within opulence. Dependency and defiance provide the tension within the players who each respond in exceptionally different ways.

Natasha Vickery’s highly dexterous performance drew out the paradoxical delight and vulnerability within her character’s high status. Physically commanding the objects and set pieces in the Mistress’ room, Vickery allowed the contained neurosis to burst forth naturally at times only to be quickly transformed into trained politeness. The flippancy of her discourse with the maids provided a theatrical highlight within our theatrical landscape.

Christina Falsone beautifully contained a seething need of Solange to express what, by necessity, had to be hidden. She played the scenes as a walking volcano that could disrupt while mostly smouldering away revealing the sources of discontent and ironic subservience. Her ritualising of this inner source of darkly conceived insight imbued the character with believable motivations. Falsone at no stage succumbed to a cliched portrayal. Her build into the final denouement was an exemplary example of a very highly attuned actor’s craft.

Sophia Marzano as, Claire, used a carefully constructed physicality to demonstrate the more naïve aspects as Solange’s younger sister. She managed to make transitions between the game and reality while never losing the essence of contained rebellion. Claire’s highly vulnerable character was played with nuanced gestures and some excellent timing.

The Maids presented in the intimate space made for a experience in keeping with the play’s subject. Design elements of set and costume (Kathleen Kershaw), sound (Kimmo Vennonen) and lighting (Neil Simpson) were merged to provide a visual/sound sculpture; virtual characters within the mix. This visual and sound construction is a necessity for providing the hidden mesh through which the actors venture. The Maids works in a way to reveal the hidden secrets within human social and personal construction. The design elements are not embellishments but rather are crucial ingredients for a kind of total theatre.

While everyone who sees such a work will have different views about how it might be presented, my only other thought is that Genet’s work and this take on it needs to be seen and experienced by young audiences. It isn’t “cool” nor faddish. It is engaging when one gives it a chance. It may not have the controversial and wide appeal of the Flowers production from the 1970s. The times are very different; this production of The Maids offers a more immersive and internal personally introspective theatre; perhaps revealing a more absurd and confronting 2025 life.

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