JEAN GENET’S THE MAIDS TRANSLATED BY BERNARD FRECHTMAN DIRECTED BY STEPHANIE SHROYER SEPT. 18 – NOV. 12, 2016 Study Guides from A Noise Within A rich resource for teachers of English, reading arts, and drama education. Dear Reader, We’re delighted you’re interested in our study guides, designed to provide a full range of information on our plays to teachers of all grade levels. A Noise Within’s study guides include: • General information about the play (characters, synopsis, timeline, and more) • Playwright biography and literary analysis • Historical content of the play • Scholarly articles • Production information (costumes, lights, direction, etc.) • Suggested classroom activities • Related resources (videos, books, etc.) • Discussion themes • Background on verse and prose (for Shakespeare’s plays) Our study guides allow you to review and share information with students to enhance both lesson plans and pupils’ theatrical experience and appreciation. 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DIRECTOR OF EDUCATION TABLE OF CONTENTS The Maids Character List ............................................4 Synopsis .........................................................5 Playwright Biography: Jean Genet .....................................6 Jean Genet Timeline. .7 The Papin Sisters ..................................................8 Themes ..........................................................9 Theatre of the Absurd .............................................10 The “Failure” of Jean Genet’s The Maids by Christopher Schmidt ............................................12 Production Design . .13 Essay Questions and Activities ................ 14 Resources and Suggestions for Further Reading ...16 A NOISE WITHIN’S EDUCATION PROGRAMS MADE POSSIBLE IN PART BY: The Ahmanson Foundation, The Capital Group Companies Charitable Foundation, The Michael J. Connell Foundation, The Dick and Sally Roberts Coyote Foundation, The Dwight Stuart Youth Fund, Edison International, The Green Foundation, The Michael & Irene Ross Endowment Fund of the Jewish Community Foundation of Los Angeles, Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors through the Los Angeles County Arts Commission, Metropolitan Associates, National Endowment for the Arts: Shakespeare in American Communities, The Kenneth T. & Eileen L. Norris Foundation, The Ralph M. Parsons Foundation, Pasadena Rotary Club, The Ann Peppers Foundation, The Rose Hills Foundation, The Shubert Foundation, The Steinmetz Foundation, The Sidney Stern Memorial Trust Program for original production. Character List Solange Claire One of the two maids and The other maid and the older sister of Claire. Solange’s younger sister. Madame Monsieur The employer of Claire and Solange. Madame’s husband. Monsieur never Madame is a wealthy older woman appears onstage because he has whose husband has recently been been wrongfully sent to prison by an mysteriously imprisoned. anonymous letter sent by Claire. Mario The milkman. Mario never appears onstage, but Claire and Solange frequently accuse one another of having an affair with him. 4 A NOISE WITHIN 2016/17 | Study Guide | The Maids Synopsis TWO SISTERS, Solange and Claire, work as maids for a wealthy woman they refer to only as “Madame.” Each night while Madame is away they recreate a sadistic and subversive ritual in which they impersonate both Madame and one another. The two women play out meticulous scenes together, fantasizing about how Madame might abuse them and how they will ultimately murder her. The play begins in the midst of one of their rituals – the sisters switching in and out of portraying their characters and their own selves. The ritual is ended by an alarm, signaling the imminent return of Madame. As they hasten to conceal the evidence of their role-play, they receive a call and learn that Monsieur, Madame’s husband, has been released from jail. Claire and Solange panic at the news: it was their false accusations that put Monsieur in jail and now that he has been released, Madame is sure to find this out and punish them. They decide that they must kill Madame that night and arrange a poisonous tea for her to drink when she gets home. When Madame arrives home, it becomes clear that she is not the maniacal Madame of their fantasies, and although she is exceedingly melodramatic and extravagant, seems to somewhat dote on her maids. Despite their best attempts to conceal it from her, Madame quickly discovers the truth about Monsieur’s release from jail and orders them Paxton, William McGregor. The House Maid. 1910. Oil on Canvas. Corcoran to fetch a taxi so she can go to him immediately. While Gallery of Art, Washington, DC. Solange lingers in her attempts to locate a taxi, Claire tries every tactic to get Madame to drink the poisonous tea, knowing that if Madame speaks with Monsieur, he will tell her everything. The maids ultimately fail in poisoning Madame and as she drives away, the two women fight desperately about their failure. Solange then enters into a lengthy reverie about death, about the subversion of power-structures and class, and about the possibilities of upward mobility through murder. As Solange brings her fantasy to an end, Claire insists on drinking the fatal cup of tea herself. She forces Solange to reenter their role-play world with her: in this world Solange embodies Claire while Claire embodies Madame. Solange as Claire fulfills the task the real Claire failed to do: successfully poisoning Madame with the cup of tea. Only it is the real Claire who fulfills the role of the poisoned Madame and as Claire dies, Solange continues her reverie, imagining that the real Madame is dead and that Claire and Solange can live on, finally free from Madame’s oppression. ♦ Exterior of Théâtre de l’Athénée. Photograph. Paris. 5 A NOISE WITHIN 2016/17 | Study Guide | The Maids Playwright Biography: Jean Genet His plays are concerned with expressing his own feeling of helplessness and solitude when confronted with the despair and loneliness of man caught in the hall of mirrors of the human condition, inexorably trapped by an endless progression of images that are merely his own distorted reflection — lies covering lies, fantasies battening upon fantasies, nightmares nourished by nightmares within nightmares. —Martin Esslin, The Theatre of the Absurd. Jean Genet. Photograph by Roger Parry. JEAN GENET, an illegitimate child abandoned by his After writing two other novels, Funeral Rites, and Querelle mother, Gabrielle Genet, was raised by a family of of Brest, Genet began to experiment with drama. His early peasants. Caught stealing at the age of 10, he spent part attempts, by their compact, neoclassical, one-act structure, of his adolescence at a notorious reform school, Mettray, reveal the strong influence of Sartre. Deathwatch where he experienced much that was later described in the continues his prison-world themes. The Maids, however, novel Miracle of the Rose. His autobiographical The Thief’s begins to explore the complex problems of identity that Journal gives a complete and uninhibited account of his life were soon to preoccupy other avant-garde dramatists as a tramp, pickpocket, and male prostitute in Barcelona, such as Samuel Beckett and Eugène Ionesco. With this Antwerp, and various other cities (c. 1930–39). It also play Genet was established as an outstanding figure in the reveals him as an aesthete, an existentialist, and a pioneer Theatre of the Absurd. of the Absurd. His subsequent plays, The Balcony, The Blacks, and He began to write in 1942 while imprisoned for theft at The Screens, are large-scale, stylized dramas in the Fresnes and produced an outstanding novel, Our Lady Expressionist manner, designed to shock and implicate of the Flowers, vividly portraying the prewar Montmartre an audience by revealing its hypocrisy and complicity. underworld of thugs, pimps, and perverts. His talent was This “Theatre of Hatred” attempts to wrest the maximum brought to the attention of Jean Cocteau and later Jean- dramatic power from a social or political situation without Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir. Because Genet in necessarily endorsing the political platitudes of either the 1948 was convicted of theft for the tenth time and would right or the left. ♦ have faced automatic life imprisonment if convicted again, a delegation of well-known writers appealed on his Source: Jean Genet. (2016). In Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved from behalf to the president of the French republic, and he was https://www.britannica.com/biography/Jean-Genet “pardoned in advance.” 6 A NOISE WITHIN 2016/17 | Study Guide | The Maids Jean Genet Timeline 1910 — Jean Genet is born in Paris. 1911 — Genet’s mother abandons him, leaving him a ward of the state. 1922 — His foster mother dies and he begins committing petty crimes, primarily theft. 1925 — He is placed in the Mettray reformatory for boys. 1929 — In order to escape the reformatory, Genet joins the French Foreign Legion. 1933 — He travels across Europe, living as a beggar, thief, and prostitute. 1934 — He signs up for another tour of duty in the army. 1936 — He deserts the army. 1937 — He returns to Paris and spends time in and out of Jean Genet. December 19, 1983. Photograph by International Progress Organization. prison for a variety of crimes, primarily theft. 1949 — Genet’s autobiography, A Thief’s Journal, is 1938 — He is tried as a deserter and placed in a military published. His play Deathwatch is produced prison. He will spend the next several years in under the direction of Genet and Marchat. and out of prison on a variety of charges. During Another novel, Funeral Rites, is published. these periods of imprisonment, Genet begins to Un Chant d’Amour write. 1950 — Genet directs , a 26 minute black and white film depicting the fantasies of a gay male prisoner and his prison warden. 1951 — Genet’s work is banned in the United States.