sign in sign up
<<
Home , Andrew Upton, A Streetcar Named Desire, Benedict Andrews, Deathwatch (play), Elizabeth Debicki, Isabelle Huppert

July 7 –August 16, 2014

Lincoln Center Festival is sponsored by American Express

August 6 –16 City Center

Sydney Theatre Company By In a new translation by and

Director Benedict Andrews Designer Alice Babidge Lighting Designer Nick Schlieper Composer Oren Ambarchi Video Designer and Operator Sean Bacon Sound Designer Luke Smiles Dramaturg Matthew Whittet Assistant to the Designer Sophie Fletcher Voice and Text Coach Charmian Gradwell Translation from the original French version Julie Rose

CAST Claire Solange Mistress

Approximate performance time: 1 hour 30 minutes, with no intermission

Major Support for Center Festival 2014 is provided by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. This performance is made possible in part by the Josie Robertson Fund for . Lincoln Center Festival 2014 is made possible in part with public funds from the Department of Cultural Affairs and New York State Council on the Arts. The Lincoln Center Festival 2014 presentation of The Maids is made possible in part by generous support from Jennie and Richard DeScherer, The Grand Marnier Foundation, Laura Pels International Foundation for Theater, The Peter Jay Sharp Foundation, and members of the Producers Circle. LINCOLN CENTER FESTIVAL 2014 THE MAIDS

Director’s Note teenager. Along with Samuel Beckett and The first impulse for The Maids was the Harold Pinter, Genet formed the foundation idea of the mise en abyme —the mirror that of my theater practice and my inquiry into reflects a mirror. The play works as a what theater is. So it is interesting to come labyrinth of fictions that the maids are mov - back to a foundation piece—realizing now ing through, a kind of mirrored labyrinth this idea of ritual, the idea that all theater is whose reflection is endlessly splintering— about theater-making and about the world that is what the fiction, the language, and as a kind of theater being at the core of all the play do. In a way, the theater set does my work. the same—the glass is reflecting an actress this way while this camera is watching her The play is amazing because it proposes that way, so the whole thing is prismatic the invention of theater by people who and endlessly reflecting itself. The room don’t own theater—the mistress owns the has a sort of double function, a conven - theater and she owns culture. The maids tional theater set on one hand and a theater live entirely outside of that; they live in a lit - machine on the other. It lets the actors tle attic and everything they know has have impulses inside a concrete form to been taught to them by other people. They play in. It is very cinematic, they can sit only exist in order to be slaves and they are inside smoking a cigarette and speak the completely dispossessed—they have to text, but then if they turn and take a few invent and make up a new reality in order steps downstage they are suddenly on a to get some sense of self. Up in their attic very abstract stage. at night they tell each other their invented stories; they are cognizant of the shame of Within The Maids there is a meditation on their incestuous relationship but they also acting and on being an actress. There is have this fantasy that gives them some - also a meditation on beauty and death and thing that is theirs alone. Fantasy becomes ecstasy. These are all things that really reality and that is the condition of these interest me in the theater. Theater is a kind two women, they are trafficking in fantasy. of ritual that leads to an act of transcen - They invent these pornographic fantasies dence; transfiguration; apotheosis in the to get off, to free themselves and feel performer—something happens night after alive. They accuse each other, “I invented night as Lady Macbeth, for example, is this story and you used it all up on yourself, walking through those hallways—that an you got off on it—that story was so impor - actress must reach, a kind of apotheosis. It tant to you, you were prepared to betray must reveal something extraordinary both me on it.” That is one of the absurd and in the actor’s craft and in her ability to touch insane things about the play, these women and move you. That is what these maids are arguing over things that are so concrete are trying to achieve. They are trying to get to them yet they don’t exist. They’ll die to a point of ecstasy and transformation over them, but they don’t exist! through their ritual. So it is a very interesting theater document to be making. Sartre calls There is a line Solange has, “My jet of spit it a whirligig of appearances, and reflections is my spray of diamonds.” All of Genet is in of, truth and reality. I think that is what we this line: the lowest of the low, the poorest, are trying to do: set all that spinning. have nothing but their spit and nothing but their hate. They don’t have the diamonds I have always loved this play and Genet has of the wealthy like their mistress—spit is been very important to me since I was a transformed into diamonds—that is an act LINCOLN CENTER FESTIVAL 2014 THE MAIDS of theater-making. The child draws a circle employer—is a theme that seemed to res - in the sand and says “now this is my cas - onate with Genet and would be explored tle.” We do it every day in theater, we take again and again in future works. a stick and say this is the sword that kills Hamlet. That poverty of gesture, that Genet’s other early works, poverty and sacredness of gesture and and , explore themes of free - transferral is the theater act. “My jet of spit dom, powerlessness, and rejection, often is my spray of diamonds.” with conflicted, sexually subversive char - acters trapped in worlds that do not accept —Benedict Andrews them. Genet used prisons, brothels, and bedrooms in each of these plays to explore his characters’ complex relationship with About Genet and power, sex, and identity. Each of these set - The Maids tings, well understood by Genet from per - He “liked the darkness, even as a child.” sonal experience, often blurred the lines He was against the rules and against the between illusion and reality, individual and law. He explained, not long before his society, truth and narrative. death, that he had “decisively repudiated” a world that had repudiated him. The role of prostitute was also one Genet had personal experience with, and used Jean Genet may well have been, as more than once in his narratives to ask Simone de Beauvoir put it, a “thug of blunt, but necessary, questions about our genius.” He was certainly—and often all relationship with society, as well as our at once—a thief, a soldier, a prisoner, a enslavement to institutions, to relation - prostitute, an activist, and an ardent lover ships, and to our own definitions of our - with a taste for controversy. He was also selves. That a revolution is playing out on a writer. the streets below in The Balcony is not only a rich, textural exploration of society His work, time and again, would explore as spectacle, it hints at the possibility of this darkness to which he claimed to be destabilizing social and political structures drawn. In fact, it would not be an under - through sexual identity—something Genet statement to say that Genet was obsessed was convinced was possible. with notions of destabilization and disrup - tion. His theatrical works are often “plays Two years after The Balcony played in New within plays,” where the audience is asked York, Genet’s would again call to con sider who is really telling the story, into question the implicit imbalances whether central characters are imagining embedded in society, specifically those their lives or living them, and always ques - based on racial identity. Subtitled, A Clown tioning who, if anyone, is telling the truth. Show , the play was intentionally unsettling and crude in its approach to issues of colo - His most famous play, The Maids , was not nialism and racial stereotypes. As a result, only beautifully written, it captured the it became the longest-running Off-Broadway imagination of a society shocked by the show of the time and has been reproduced real-life events of two maids (and sisters) and reimagined over and over. As Brian whom had murdered their wealthy employer Logan, writer for , wrote of a and her daughter, apparently without cause. 2007 London adaptation of the play, The The subversion of power—of servant killing Blacks “doesn’t dramatize racial stereotypes LINCOLN CENTER FESTIVAL 2014 THE MAIDS

so much as boil them in a pot, dance other post-structuralist writing move - around them, and dish them up for dinner.” ments and contributed to greater literary dialogue on issues of gender and sexual - And this is where Genet’s brilliance lay. He ity. It would also set the tone and form of trod the line between provocateur, advo - many of his other works, which challenge cate, and misfit with poetic talent writ not only our notions of linear narrative, but large. As Saint Genet —Jean-Paul Sartre’s of the role and quality of protagonist, hero, biographical portrait of Genet—can attest and villain. how he came to be such a fearless and confronting writer is itself a story that If we left the subject of Jean Genet’s life at makes us read his work differently. this point, we may see little more than a talented misfit made good. But there is Born in France in 1910 to a single, desti - more to this story than meets the eye. To tute mother, his father unknown, Genet say that much of Genet’s writing is autobi - was a ward of the state before his first ographical is inadequate. Although many of birthday. He left school at the age of 12, the characters, places, and events he had a basic rural upbringing, was impris - explores across each medium—novel, oned multiple times during his adolescence, poem, play, and film—are directly related and only escaped the by-then notorious to his own life experience, he did not sim - Mettray Penal Colony to join the Foreign ply recall past details as fictional fodder. Legion during World War II. Upon returning Instead, it seems that the line between to , he was repeatedly imprisoned as fact and fiction was never very clear or per - petty theft became a way of life. haps even meaningful to Genet. Although he is known for having written some of the It was only when he came to the attention most excruciatingly frank explorations of of and Sartre that something society and relationships still in production changed for, and within, Genet. He had today, he perpetuated what may either be been writing throughout his various peri - gross exaggerations, or even outright lies, ods of incarceration in the 1940s (which he about his own life story. claims to have enjoyed), and it is these works that drew the attention of Cocteau It is the discovery of these inaccuracies, and Sartre. Upon reading Our Lady of the which he himself repeated, that makes the Flowers , both Cocteau and Sartre person - task of unravelling his absurdist, often vio - ally lobbied to save Genet from an impend - lent and sexually-charged work as an ing life sentence in prison and set in author and a playwright that much more motion the path that would lead to a long challenging. It appears that this radically list of influential novels and plays. honest human being, who challenges us to strip ourselves bare one label at a time, is Although Genet’s first published novel, Our not entirely the man or author he may at Lady of the Flowers , with its detailed explo - first seem to be. The biographies of his ration of prostitution and homosexual sex life, most notably that of Edmund White, was bordering on the pornographic, it man - concur that the early years of Genet’s life aged (with some later editing and revision) were as he tells it. He was indeed surren - to cast off the “erotica” label and find a dered to the care of the state. Yet, it broader audience. Its celebration of the slang appears that he did not spend his childhood of the Parisian slums ultimately influenced shifting from foster home to foster home, LINCOLN CENTER FESTIVAL 2014 THE MAIDS

unwanted and entirely unloved, struggling remain pertinent. As Donald Malcolm of and thieving to survive. The New Yorker wrote, “M. Genet’s vision of society is both perverse and private, and Instead, White revealed that Genet spent his play is a species of Grand Guignol— most of his childhood in the care of just arresting, horrific, and trivial.” In an inter - one, apparently kind, rural family. Quite view given just a few years prior to his apart from a harsh farming life, Genet’s fos - death at the age of 76, Genet remarks that ter parents were artisans with enough he believed every human being has “a security and safety to make his thievery a prophetic vision of himself” of which he is choice rather than a necessity. They also not aware. Throughout his life and his work, provided him with a solid, although brief he hinted at our ability to both create our education, while many other children in a lives and also be determined by our own similar predicament elsewhere were sent vision of what and who we will become. to work. Although we may see part of Genet’s own Genet was certainly an orphan. How we prophetic vision for himself in his work, we read the rest of his life is up to us. Criminal also see the abandoned child, the orphan. or saint? Sartre preferred the latter, but not We see the criminals, the outcasts of his cre - everyone agreed. Either way, these exag - ative mind, trapped in self-destructive circles, gerations or outright lies cannot erase the always seeking acceptance—and yet, all the enormity of an orphan rising to the heights while, behaving so deeply unacceptably. of French literary society as Genet did. Whatever his personal fictions, his profes - —Justine Webse sional ones were largely unquestioned— then and now. About the Playwright Jean Genet was born in Paris in 1910 and It has never really been a case of whether his path to becoming a playwright began or not a reader or viewer “likes” Genet’s during a prison sentence in the 1940s. work. It is hard to imagine Genet ever writ - Orphaned and sent into state care prior to ing a novel or a play that he wished simply his first birthday, Jean Genet grew up in to entertain or be “liked” by his audience. the care of a family of artisans in rural Instead, it appears he wrote as another France. His pattern of petty thievery ensured way of exploring his own criminality, his he spent several stints in the notorious sexuality, and his disregard for the rules. Mettray Penal Colony before joining the His work is often labeled “absurdist,” but it French Foreign Legion at the beginning of is the rules and the structures we rely on to World War II. Upon returning to Paris and make sense of ourselves, of Genet him - continuing his life of petty crime and pros - self, as well as the characters in his stories titution, Genet was imprisoned again, that he often succeeds in convincing us to where he began writing the first of five see past. successful novels. On the cusp of Genet’s receiving a life sentence, Jean Cocteau and What has kept Genet’s work alive and in Jean-Paul Sartre took it upon themselves production for at least half a century is not to lobby for his successful release, which just the quality of his prose and the com - led to a long career of writing. In 1946 his plexity of his subjects, it’s that these first novel, The Miracle of The Rose , was deeply questioning experiences of how we published, quickly followed by Querelle of understand ourselves, and each other, Brest in 1947, in LINCOLN CENTER FESTIVAL 2014 THE MAIDS

1948, the critically acclaimed The Thief’s includes The Monuments Men, Blue Journal , and , both in 1949. Jasmine, Robin Hood, The Curious Case of During that year he also produced a silent Benjamin Button, I’m Not There, Elizabeth: picture, A Song of Love (“ Un chant The Golden Age, Notes on a Scandal, d’amour ”) . Genet’s first play, Deathwatch, Babel, Little Fish, The Life Aquatic with experimented with the idea of murderer as Steve Zissou, The Aviator, Coffee and hero. His second dramatic work, and also Cigarettes, The Lord of the Rings Trilogy, his first critical success as a playwright, Veronica Guerin, Heaven, The Shipping was The Maids , written in 1947 when he News, Charlotte Gray, Bandits, The Talented was not yet 40. The next decade of his Mr. Ripley, An Ideal Husband, Pushing Tin, career was dedicated to the theater, pro - Elizabeth, Oscar and Lucinda, Thank God ducing The Balcony in 1957, The Blacks in He Met Lizzie , and Paradise Road. Positions: 1959, and in 1964. He wrote Co-artistic director and CEO of two pieces, Splendid’s and Her (“ Elle ”), Theatre Company (2008 –12), co-chair of during this period, which were not pro - the creative stream of the prime minister duced in his lifetime. In 1952 Genet of Australia’s National 2020 Summit (2008), became the subject of Jean Paul Sartre’s and Australian Conservation Foundation and lengthy and adoring essay Saint Genet and Australian Film Institute ambassador. Awards : his place in the forefront of Honorary doctorates of letters from UNSW was solidified. Genet’s last novel, Prisoner and University of Sydney; Centenary Medal of Love , is a memoir of his encounters with for Service to Australian Society through Palestinian fighters and Black Panthers, Acting; and Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et and was not published until after the des Lettres. Theater awards include three author’s death . By the late 1960s Genet was Helpmann Awards, two convinced he had “nothing else to say” in Awards, two , a novels, plays, or film. Yet, he supported the MO Award, an Ibsen Centennial Award, Paris student uprising in 1968, and in 1970, and two Sydney Theatre Critics Circle became a spokesperson for the Black Awards. Film honors: six-time Academy Panthers. Later, he took up the cause of the Award nominee, Academy Award for Best Palestinians and visited Beirut in 1982. Jean Actress ( ), Academy Award Genet died in Paris in 1986. for Best Supporting Actress ( The Aviator ), BAFTA Awards ( Blue Jasmine , Elizabeth, and The Aviator ), AFI/AACTA Awards ( Blue About the Artists Jasmine , Elizabeth: The Golden Age, Little Cate Blanchett (Claire) Sydney Theatre Fish , and Thank God He Met Lizzie ), SAG Company as director: The Year of Magical Awards ( Blue Jasmine, The Aviator , and Thinking, , and A Kind of Alaska . The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the as actress: Gross King ), Golden Globe Awards ( Blue Jasmine, und Klein, , A Streetcar Named Elizabeth , and I’m Not There ), and Venice Desire, The War of the Roses, , Film Festival’s Volpi Cup for Best Actress Sweet Phoebe, Kafka Dances, Oleanna , (I’m Not There ). Training: NIDA. and Top Girls . Other theater credits include Guggenheim/Francesco Vezzoli’s Right You Isabelle Huppert (Solange) Sydney Theatre Are (If You Think You Are) ; Almeida Theatre’s Company: The Maids . Odéon: Orlando (R. Plenty ; Belvoir’s , Hamlet, The Wilson), Measure for Measure (P. Zadek), Blind Giant is Dancing , and The Tempest ; Hedda Gabler , Quartett (R. Wilson), A and Griffin’s Kafka Dances . Film work Streetcar (K. Warlikowski), and Les Fausses LINCOLN CENTER FESTIVAL 2014 THE MAIDS

Confidences (L. Bondy). Festival d’Avignon: Victorian College of the Arts’ Much Ado Medée. Bouffes du Nord: 4.48 Psychosis About Nothing, Ghetto, The Black Sequin (C. Regy) and On Ne Badine Pas Avec Dress , and The Hollow. Film: Everest, L’Amour . Opéra Bastille: Jeanne Au Bucher. Macbeth, The Man From U.N.C.L.E, The National Theatre: Mary Stuart . Other the - Great Gatsby, A Few Best Men , and Godel: ater: and A Month in the Incomplete (short). Television: Rake . Awards: Country . Film credits include La Dentellière, 2013 AACTA for Best Supporting Actress Violette Nozière , Une Affaire de Femmes, ( ) and 2013 Sydney Theatre , La Cérémonie, Rien ne va Award for Best Newcomer ( The Maids ). plus, , L’Ivresse Du Training: Victorian College of the Arts. Pouvoir , , The Bedroom Window , Passion , Sauve Qui Peut La Vie , About the Creative Team La Pianiste , Le Temps du Loup , Amour, Les Destinées Sentimentales , Amateur, Huit Benedict Andrews (Director and Co- Femmes , , Heaven’s Adaptor) Directing credits with Sydney Gat e, La Storia de Piera, Gabrielle , White Theatre Company include The City, The Material , Villa Amalia , Home, In Another Season at Sarsaparilla, Julius Caesar, Far Country, Captive, Bella Addormentata, Away, Endgame, Life is a Dream, Mr. Abus de Faiblesse , and La Religieuse . Kolpert, Attempts on Her Life , and Awards for best actress include a César Fireface . His marathon Shakespeare cycle Award ( La Cérémonie by C. Chabrol); Venice The War of the Roses received six Film Festival award ( La Cérémonie and Helpmann Awards and five Sydney Theatre Une Affaire de Femmes by C. Chabrol); Awards in 2009. In 2012 his award-winning Lion d’Or Jury’s Special Award ( Gabrielle production of Gross und Klein played to by P. Chereau); awards great acclaim in Sydney, Paris, London, (La Pianiste by M. Haneke and Violette Vienna, and Recklinghausen. From 2000 to Nozière by C. Chabrol); Berlin Film Festival 2003 he was resident director at Sydney award ( Eight Women by F. Ozon); Montreal Theatre Company. For Sydney’s Belvoir St. Film Festival award ( Merci pour le chocolat Theatre, he has directed Every Breath, The by C. Chabrol); Moscow International Film Seagull, Who’s Afraid of ?, Festival award ( Madame Bovary by C. The Chairs, A Midsummer Night’s Dream , Chabrol); ( La Pianiste The Threepenny , and Measure for and Eight Women ); BAFTA Award ( La Measure. Interna tional work includes Dentellière by C. Goretta); Prix Lumières numerous productions with Schaubühne award ( La Cérémonie , Merci pour le choco - am Lehniner Platz, Berlin; Detlev Glanert’s lat , and Gabrielle ); and European Achieve - Caligula for ; Three ment in World Cinema at the European Sisters for , London; Monteverdi’s Film Awards. Positions: President of the Return of Ulysses for Young Vic/ENO; The Jury at the 62nd Cannes Film Festival, Eternity Man for the Almeida, London; Officier de l'Ordre National de la Légion Macbeth and King Lear for National Theatre d'Honneur, Officier de l'Ordre National du of Iceland; and Verdi’s Macbeth at the Mérite, and Commandeur dans l'Ordre des Royal Danish Opera. He was awarded the Arts et des Lettres. 2012 London Critics Circle Award for Best Director for , Caligula was Elizabeth Debicki (Mistress) Sydney Theatre nominated for Best New Opera Production Company: The Maids . Other theater: Mel - at the 2012 Olivier Awards, and King Lear bourne Theatre Company’s The Gift and received six Grímans (Icelandic theater LINCOLN CENTER FESTIVAL 2014 THE MAIDS awards). Alongside this version of The World of Dissocia and The Year of Magical Maids , his adaptations for the stage Thinking. As costume designer: Waiting for include The War of the Roses with Tom Godot, Face to Face, Gross und Klein, True Wright, Life is a Dream and Three Sisters West, Honour, The War of the Roses, The with Beatrix Christian, and his own ver - Season at Sarsaparilla, The Lost Echo, Boy sions of Chekhov’s The Seagull and Three Gets Girl , and Julius Caesar. As original Sisters . His play Every Breath has been costume designer: Under Milk Wood. translated into German, Portuguese, and Other theater work includes as costume Spanish. This year Oberon books will pub - designer for Caligula and The Return of lish a volume of his plays including Every Ulysses at English National Opera, Symphony Breath, Like A Sun , and Dream Girl. In 2014 at Legs on the Wall, Le nozze di Figaro and he has directed Bliss for Opera Australia, and Peter Pan, at the Young Vic; Caligula for Teatro Colón, , , Buenos Aires; and Prokofiev’s The Fiery Babyteeth, Private Lives, That Face, Who’s Angel at the Komische Oper, Berlin. His Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Parramatta Girls , first collection of poetry, Lens Flare , was and Capricornia at Sydney’s Belvoir St. published by Pitt Street Poetry last June. Theatre . As set and costume designer: Every Breath for Belvoir, Rigoletto for Andrew Upton (Artistic Director of Berlin’s Komische Oper, The Navigator for Sydney Theatre Company and Co-Adaptor) Elision Ensemble, and King Tide, The Sydney Theatre Company as director: Nightwatchman, The Peach Season, and Travelling North, , Fury, Strangers in Between for Griffin Theatre . The White Guard, Long Day’s Journey Into Film work includes Snowtown. Night, The Mysteries: Genesis, Reunion, Ruby Moon , Dissident, and Goes Without Nick Schlieper (Lighting Designer) has Saying . Sydney Theatre Company as adap - designed for all the major companies in tor and translator: The Maids, Uncle Vanya, Australia and works internationally regu - The White Guard, Dissident, Goes Without larly. Sydney Theatre Company: numerous Saying , , Hedda Gabler, productions including: Waiting for Godot, Don Juan, and Cyrano de Bergerac. Sydney Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, Theatre Company as writer: Riflemind and Face to Face, Baal, Gross und Klein, Uncle Hanging Man . For the National Theatre of Vanya , Hedda Gabler, A Streetcar Named Great Britain: Children of the Sun, The Desire, Long Day’s Journey into Night, The Cherry Orchard, The White Guard, and City , and The War of the Roses. Really Philistines . Film credits as adaptor: Foucault’s Useful Group: Love Never Dies in Australia Pendulum, Amongst Thieves , and Duplicate and Tokyo. Melbourne Theatre Company: Keys ; as co-writer: Gone ; as writer and Richard III , The Visit , The Tempest , and director: Stories of Lost Souls and Bangers. Hamlet. Belvoir St. Theatre: Death of a Positions: Current artistic director of Sydney Salesman, Measure for Measure , and Theatre Company, and 2006 –07 STC artis - Every Breath . West End and Broadway: tic associate. Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. Royal Shakespeare Company: The Hostage . Alice Babidge (Designer) Sydney Theatre Bavarian State Theatre: Peer Gynt and Company: The Maids , Money Shots, The Macbeth. Schillertheater Berlin: Michael White Guard, Oresteia, The Mysteries: Kramer and Ein Florentinerhut. Hamburg Genesis, The Women of Troy , and Self State Theatre: Armut, Reichtum , and The Esteem. As set designer: The Wonderful Ginger Man . Theatr Clwyd, Wales: The LINCOLN CENTER FESTIVAL 2014 THE MAIDS

Government Inspector . Hamburg State Stage Design for Measure for Measure, Opera: Billy Budd and A Midsummer Night’s and Australia Council Green Street Studio Dream . Opera Australia: Marriage of Figaro , New York Residency 2005. Training: Video Don Giovanni, Nabucco , Tannhäuser, Il & Visual Arts, Hons. trovatore , and Falstaff . State Opera of South Australia: Wagner’s Ring Cycle. He has won Luke Smiles (Sound Designer) As com - numerous awards. poser and performer for Sydney Theatre Company: School Dance . Other credits as Oren Ambarchi (Composer) Sydney Theatre a performer include work with Chunky Company: The Maids . Lyon Opera Ballet: Move, Australian Dance Theatre, Lucy Guerin Black Box . Belvoir St. Theatre: Every Breath. Inc., Balletlab, Byron Perry, and Antony Melbourne Festival: Weather. Malthouse: . As composer: sound tracks for Connected. National Theatre of Iceland: many Australian and International artists Macbeth. Solo albums include Sagittarian and companies including Chunky Move, Domain , Audience of One , Grapes from Australian Dance Theatre, Dancenorth, the Estate , and The Pendulum’s Embrace . Splintergroup, Gabrielle Nankivell, Stompin, Collaborations include Keiji Haino, Jim Tasdance, West Australian Ballet, Nederlands O’Rourke, Sunn 0))), John Zorn, Thomas Dans Theatre, Rambert Dance Company, Brinkmann, Evan Parker, Voice Crack, Keith Ox, and and Bare Bones Dance Company. Rowe, Charlemagne Palestine, Alvin Lucier, Training: Victorian College of the Arts. and John Tilbury. Festivals: Sonar (Spain), Tectonics (Iceland), Mutek (Canada), Hop - Matthew Whittet (Dramaturg) Sydney scotch (United States), Yokohama Triennale Theatre Company: The Maids and The (Japan), and Ultima (Norway). Other: Co- Secret River . As actor for Sydney Theatre organizer of What Is Music? Festival Company: The Wonderful World of Dissocia, 1993 –2003 and co-producer of Subsonics Metamorphosis , This Little Piggy, These television series. Awards: Honorary Mention People, Endgame, Fireface, Attempts On Digital Music category 2003 Prix Ars Her Life , and Seneca’s Oedipus . Other the - Electronica, Linz, Austria. ater acting credits: School Dance and Fugitive for Windmill Theatre; Conversation Sean Bacon (Video Designer and Operator) Piece, The Book of Everything, The Three - Sydney Theatre Company: Pygmalion . penny Opera, The Underpants, Ubu , and English National Opera/Young Vic: Return As You Like It for Belvoir St. Theatre; of Ulysses. Belvoir St. Theatre: Measure Moving Target, Journal of the Plague Year , for Measure and Beautiful One Day. and The Ham Funeral at Malthouse Version 1.0: Beautiful One Day , The Tender Theatre; Hamlet and King Lear for Bell Age, The Table of Knowledge, This Kind of Shakespeare; and The Department for Ruckus, Deeply Offensive and Utterly STCSA. As writer: Old Man and Silver at Untrue, The Bougainville Photoplay Project, Belvoir . Girl Asleep, School Dance, Fugitive, Seven Kilometres North East, and Wages and Big Bad Wolf at Windmill; and Harbinger of Spin. Experience Harmaat: Nobody for . As dramaturg: National Nevermind and Topo . Cast Gallery: Collective. Theatre of Iceland’s King Lear. Film acting: Cube 37: Brilliant Refraction. Performance The Great Gatsby, Australia, U Can’t Stop Space: Sleeplessness. Awards: Sydney the Murders , and Moulin Rouge . Television: Theatre Award for Stage Design for Devil’s Playground, Mabo, Sea Princesses, Truckstop, Sydney Theatre Award for Sea Patrol, White Collar Blue, Bad Cop Bad LINCOLN CENTER FESTIVAL 2014 THE MAIDS

Cop, Changi, Backberner, Wildside , and Wilderness Edge, The Adventure Game, Water Rats . Awards: 2013 –14 Sidney Myer Shelley, Let’s Pretend, Starlings , and The Creative Fellow and Philip Parsons Young Challenge. Other: Voice trainer for London Playwrights Award for his play Silver (2010). School of Puppetry. Training: Central School Other: Currently under commission from of Speech and Drama, Bristol Old Vic Belvoir and Windmill Theatre. Training: NIDA. Theatre School.

Sophie Fletcher (Assistant to the Designer) The Maids Production Staff Sydney Theatre Company: The Maids . As Executive Producer Rachael Azzopardi costume design assistant: Waiting For Production Manager Annie Eves-Boland Godot and Gross und Klein. Other theater Deputy Production Manager Terri Richards as set and costume designer: This Heaven Company Manager Colm O’Callaghan at Belvoir St. Theatre and Sweet Nothings Stage Manager Georgia Gilbert for Pants Guys/ATYP . As design assistant: Deputy Stage Manager Amy Forman Peter Pan, Every Breath, and Babyteeth at Video System Designer Shane Johnson Belvoir; Wagner’s Ring Cycle and The Video Technician David Bergman Marriage of Figaro for Opera Australia . Sound System Designer Adam Iuston Film: Florence Has Left the Building and Wig, Make-Up, and Wardrobe Supervisor Reunion-The Turning. Training: WAAPA Lauren A. Proietti graduate 2012. Head Carpenter James McKay Deputy Head Carpenter Boaz Shemesh Charmian Gradwell (Voice and Text Coach ) Head Electrician Andrew Tompkins Sydney Theatre Company credits include Media Relations Manager Tim McKeough Mojo, Perplex, Noises Off, The Long Way Home, Travelling North, Machinal, Waiting Sydney Theatre Company for Godot, Romeo and Juliet, Rosencrantz In 1980 Sydney Theatre Company’s first and Guildenstern are Dead, Storm Boy, The artistic director, Richard Wherrett, defined Maids, Mrs. Warren’s Profession, Sex with STC’s mission as to provide “first-class Strangers, Under Milk Wood, Gross und theatrical entertainment for the people of Klein, Bloodland, Elling, Blood Wedding, The Sydney—theater that is grand, vulgar, intel - White Guard, In the Next Room (or The ligent, challenging, and fun.” Almost 35 Vibrator Play), Uncle Vanya, Travesties, A years later, under the leadership of Artistic Streetcar Named Desire, The War of the Director Andrew Upton, that ethos still Roses , and Tot Mom. As director: The rings true. Comedy of Errors. Other theater as voice and text coach: Royal Shakespeare Com - STC offers a diverse program of distinctive pany’s The Taming of the Shrew, Julius theater of vision and scale at its harborside Caesar, The Tempest, The Canterbury Tales home venue, The Wharf; Sydney Theatre (tour) , A Winter’s Tale, Pericles, Days of at Walsh Bay; and , as Significance, Macbeth, Macbett, The its resident theater company. STC has a Penelopiad, Noughts and Crosses, The proud heritage as a creative hub and incu - Comedies London Season, Twelfth Night, bator for Australian theater and theater A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The London makers, developing and producing eclectic Gunpowder Season , and Romeo and Australian works, interpretations of classic Juliet. As director, deviser, and trainer: A repertoire, and great international writing. Year with Space 2000 in Kaduna, Nigeria. STC strives to create theater experiences Television work includes Howard’s Way, that reflect Sydney’s distinctive personality LINCOLN CENTER FESTIVAL 2014 THE MAIDS

and engage audiences. Strongly committed Daniel Petre AO to engagement in the community, STC Andrew Stuart offers an innovative school drama program; Andrew Upton partners with groups in metropolitan Peter Young AM Sydney, regional centers, and rural areas; and reaches beyond the state of New Sydney Theatre Company Staff South Wales touring productions through - Artistic Director Andrew Upton out Australia and overseas. The theater Executive Director Patrick McIntyre careers of many of Australia’s internation - Director, Programming and Artistic ally renowned artists have been launched Operations Rachael Azzopardi and fostered at STC, including Mel Gibson, Director, Finance and Administration , , Geoffrey Rush, Claire Beckwith , , Benedict Andrews, Director, Marketing and Customer , and Cate Blanchett. STC Services Nicole McPeake often collaborates with international artists Director Private Support Danielle Heidbrink and companies and, in recent years, the Director, Community and Corporate company’s international profile has grown Partnerships Paul O’Byrne significantly with productions touring exten - Head of Production Simon Khamara sively to great acclaim. Renowned artists Tamás Ascher, , Sydney Theatre Company , Steven Soderbergh, Michael Acknowledgements Blakemore, Max Stafford-Clark, Howard The Sydney Theatre Company’s license to Davies, Declan Donnellan, and Isabelle present Jean Genet’s play The Maids is Huppert have all worked with STC in recent granted by Rosica Colin Limited, London. years. STC has presented productions by the Abbey Theatre, Traverse Theatre, Vacuums supplied by Dyson Complicite, Cheek by Jowl, Out-of-Joint, Projection screen manufactured by the National Theatre of Great Britain, and Gerriets Ltd. Steppenwolf Theater Company. STC is assisted by the Australian government New York City Center , now in its 70th through the Australia Council, by its arts year, has played a defining role in the cultural funding and advisory body, and by the New life of the city since 1943. It was ’s South Wales government through Arts first performing arts center, dedicated by NSW. sydneytheatre.com.au Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia in 1943 with a mis - sion to make the best in music, theater, and Sydney Theatre Company dance accessible to all audiences. Today, City Board of Directors Center is home to many distinguished com - David Gonski AC (Chairman) panies, including City Center’s Principal The Hon Bruce Baird AM Dance Company, Alvin Ailey American Dance Jonathan Biggins Theater, as well as Manhattan Theatre Club; Toni Cody a roster of renowned national and interna - John Connolly tional visiting artists; and its own critically Ann Johnson acclaimed and popular programs. The Tony- Mark Lazberger honored Encores! musical theater series Patrick McIntyre has been hailed as “one of the very best Justin Miller reasons to be alive in New York.” In the Ian Narev summer of 2013 City Center launched LINCOLN CENTER FESTIVAL 2014 THE MAIDS

Encores! Off-Center, a new series featur - works and offered some 139 world, U.S., ing seminal Off-Broadway musicals filtered and New York premieres. It places particu - through the lens of today’s most innovative lar emphasis on showcasing contem porary artists. Dance has been integral to the the - artistic viewpoints and multidisci plinary ater’s mission from the start, and dance works that challenge the boundaries of tra - programs, including the annual Fall for ditional performance. Dance Festival, remain central to City Center’s identity. Vital partnerships with Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts arts organizations, including Jazz at Lincoln Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts Center and London’s Sadler’s Wells Theatre, (LCPA) serves three primary roles: presen - enhance City Center’s programmatic offer - ter of artistic programming, national leader ings. City Center is dedicated to providing in arts and education and community rela - educational opportunities to New York City tions, and manager of the Lincoln Center students and teachers with programs such campus. A presenter of more than 3,000 as Encores! In Schools and the Young free and ticketed events, performances, People’s Dance series. Special workshops tours, and educational activities annually, cater to families, seniors, and other groups, LCPA offers 15 series, festivals, and pro - while events such as the Fall for Dance grams including American Songbook, Avery DanceTalk series offer learning opportuni - Fisher Artist Program, Great Performers, ties to the general public. In 2011 City Lincoln Center Books, Lincoln Center Center completed an extensive renovation Dialogue , Lincoln Center Festival, Lincoln to revitalize and modernize its historic the - Center Out of Doors, Lincoln Center Vera ater. City Center is proud to continue List Art Project, Midsummer Night Swing, Mayor LaGuardia's dream of a home for Martin E. Segal Awards, Meet the Artist , the arts and its audience. Mostly Mozart Festival, Target Free Thurs - days , and the White Light Festival, as well as Lincoln Center Festival the Emmy Award-winning Live From Lincoln Since its inaugural season in 1996, Lincoln Center , which airs nationally on PBS. As man - Center Festival has received worldwide ager of the Lincoln Center campus, LCPA pro - attention for presenting some of the broad - vides support and services for the Lincoln est and most original performing arts pro - Center complex and the 11 resident organiza - grams in Lincoln Center’s history. The 2014 tions. In addition, LCPA led a $1.2 billion cam - Festival will have 49 performances. Now in pus renovation, completed in October 2012. its 19th year, the Festival has presented more than 1,300 performances of opera, Acknowledgements music, dance, theater, and interdisciplinary Video Equipment World Stages forms by internationally acclaimed artists Lighting and Sound Equipment Production from over 50 countries. To date, the Festival Resource Group has commissioned more than 40 new Sound Coordinator Scott Lehrer Lincoln Center Festival 2014

Lincoln Center gratefully acknowledges the support of the members of the Producers Circle that made possible the Lincoln Center Festival 2014 presentations of Bolshoi Ballet and Sydney Theatre Company’s production of Jean Genet’s The Maids.

Producers Circle Douglas S. Cramer and Hubert Bush Mark and Nina Magowan Chris & Bruce Crawford Christine & Stephen Schwarzman Mimi Haas Sarah & Howard Solomon Elliot & Roslyn Jaffee Mr. and Mrs. Martin Sosnoff Robert W. Jones and Herbert & Svetlana Wachtell Stella Igorevna Simakova

Supporters Circle Helene Berger Liz & Gus Oliver Karen Capanelli Susan and Arthur Rebell Mark and Lisa Cronin Douglas and Jean Renfield-Miller Barbara & Douglas Dannay Michelle Riley and Susanne Kandel Valerie and Charles Diker Deborah and Chuck Royce Brendan & Kathleen FitzGerald Gregg & Lisa Schenker Terry and Michael Groll Dr. Robert & Janie Schwalbe Russel Hamilton Barry F. Schwartz Theodore J. Israel Jr. & Laurel Cutler Mrs. C. Sidamon-Eristoff Charlie and Ann Johnson Barbara H. Stanton William & Elizabeth Kahane Gene and Jean Stark Mr. and Mrs. Christian Lange Mary Delle Stelzer Daniele Menache & J&Z Gompertz Steven D. Thomas Dr. Jakob Nielsen Two Anonymous Welcome to Lincoln Center A X THE WORLD’S LEADING PERFORMING ARTS CENTER I A N I V

hosts some five million visitors annually. Located on 16.3 I K A Ñ acres, the recently transformed Lincoln Center cam- I pus is home to 11 Resident Organizations: The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, The Film Society of Lincoln Center, , The , Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, Lincoln Center Theater, The Metropolitan Opera, New York City Ballet, New York Philhar- monic, The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, and The School of American Ballet. There is something go- ing on 365 days a year at the 30 indoor and outdoor venues spread across Lincoln Center. For information and tickets visit www.LincolnCenter.org, or contact each organization. See. Hear. Explore. Learn. Share. Experience the best of the performing arts at Lincoln Center.

The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center chambermusicsociety.org 212.875.5775 The Film Society of Lincoln Center filmlinc.com 212.875.5610 Revson Fountain L

Jazz at Lincoln Center L E S S U

jalc.org 212.258.9800 B

K R

The Juilliard School A M juilliard.edu 212.799.5000 Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts AboutLincolnCenter.org 212.875.5000 Lincoln Center Theater lct.org 212.362.7600 The Metropolitan Opera MetOpera.org 212.362.6000 New York City Ballet nycballet.com 212.870.5500 New York Philharmonic nyphil.org 212.875.5709 The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts nypl.org/locations/lpa 212.870.1630 The School of American Ballet sab.org 212.769.6600 Paul Milstein Pool and Terrace A New Way to Enjoy Live From Lincoln Center

Live From Lincoln Center is Enjoy Live From Lincoln Center on your own schedule. Visit underwritten by a major grant from watch.lincolncenter.org and right on your smartphone, tablet or computer, view favorite moments from recent PBS broadcasts, behind-the-scenes features, and interviews Support provided by featuring artists such as Patina Miller, Audra McDonald, Josh Robert Wood Johnson Groban, Stephanie Blythe, Kristin Chenoweth, , Olga 1962 Charitable Trust Borodina and Dmitri Hvorostovsky, and many more. Thomas H. Lee and Ann Tenenbaum Watch.lincolncenter.org is also the place to go for: The Robert and Renée Belfer Family Foundation Live stream events happening in and around Lincoln Center. Mercedes T. Bass Interviews with the dazzling array of performers who National Endowment for the Arts populate Lincoln Center’s stages—from members of the Artist interviews supported by Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra and New York City First Republic Bank Ballet, to opera divas, the best of Broadway, and the international arts.

MetLife shares Lincoln Center’s commitment to making the finest in performing arts accessible to all people. Since 1997, MetLife’s sponsorship of Live From Lincoln Center has been instrumental in the series’ success, and has enabled Lincoln Center to bring the Emmy Award-winning program to hundreds of millions of people across the nation—building new audiences for the arts. Learn More, Take the Tour

N LINCOLN CENTER, THE WORLD’S O T

N LEADING PERFORMING ARTS A T

S CENTER, is a premiere New York

N

A destination for visitors from around I R

B the globe. Did you know that tours of its iconic campus have made the Top Ten Tour list of NYC&CO, the official guide to New York City, for two year’s running? All tour options offer an inside look at what happens on and off its stages, led by guides with an encyclopedic knowledge of Visitors get a concert preview at rehearsal Lincoln Center, great anecdotes, and a passion for the arts. The daily one-hour Spotlight Tour covers the Center’s history along with current activities, and visits at least three of its famous theaters. Visitors can now also explore broadcast operations inside the Tisch WNET-TV satellite studio on Broadway, and see Lincoln Center’s newest venue, the Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center, home to the largest Plasma screen in the nation on public display. Want more? A number of specialty tours are available: RADIO CITY MUSIC HALL & LINCOLN CENTER COMBO TOUR Experience two of New York City’s “must-see” attractions with one ticket. This package combines the Music Hall’s tour of its Art Deco interior—which might include meeting a world-famous Radio City Rockette—with Lincoln Center’s Spotlight Tour, where a sneak peak at a rehearsal happens whenever possible. ART & ARCHITECTURE TOUR Lincoln Center’s 16-acre campus has one of New York City’s greatest modern art collections, with paintings and sculpture by such internationally acclaimed artists as Marc Chagall, Henry Moore, and Jasper Johns. The tour not only examines these fine art masterworks, it also explores the buildings and public spaces of visionary architects like Philip Johnson, as well as the innovative concepts of architects Diller Scofidio+ Renfro with FXFOWLE, Beyer Blinder Belle, and Tod Williams Bille Tsien, designers of the campus’ $1.2 billion renovation. Inside the David H. Koch Theater

EVEN MORE TOUR OPTIONS Lincoln Center offers Foreign N O

Language Tours in five languages: French, German, Italian, T N A

Japanese, and Spanish, in addition to American Sign T S

Language tours. Visitors with a special interest in jazz can take N A I the Jazz at Lincoln Center Tour of the organization’s gorgeous R B venues at the Times Warner Center, the only facilities created specifically for the performance of jazz music. And Group Tours of more than 15 people get a discount. For more information, click on LincolnCenter.org/Tours.To book a tour, call (212) 875.5350, email [email protected], or visit the Tour and Information Desk in the David Rubenstein Atrium at Lincoln Center, located on Broadway between 62nd and 63rd Streets. –Joy Chutz