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THEATER

THEATER REVIEW

Classy Dames in Desperate Straits

Cate Blanchett and Isabelle Huppert in The Maids at City Center

By BEN BRANTLEY

AUG. 9, 2014

Some real classy dames are tearing up the joint at City Center, where the Sydney Theater Company is
performing its rip-roaring production of Jean Genets The Maids as part of the Lincoln Center Festival
through Aug. 16. You might add that these ladies, embodied in the august personages of Cate Blanchett and
Isabelle Huppert, are stinking up the place, as well.
Their language, with its sewer-mouth talk of body odors and functions, is as rank as it is florid. Then
theres that fancy perfume they keep spritzing on their private parts. And, oh, those cut flowers what
looks like acres of them which are flung about at random and used as vigorous instruments of
flagellation.
A less-charitable theatergoer might detect another aroma within this bouquet of smells: the whiff of
acting so ripe its gone rotten. But to object to that would be to miss the point of what the comfort-zonetrashing director, Benedict Andrews, and his brave cast of three which is rounded out by the smashing
young actress Elizabeth Debicki are trying to achieve here.
That would be a portrait of people who are acting from desperation, trying on poses (and clothes and

makeup) in a furious, futile bid to achieve some sense of identity. Becoming someone else to become
yourself, and flailing and failing, is a sad and sorry existential process in The Maids, which was inspired
by a true story of homicidal sisters working as domestics.
The first play written by Genet, the professional outlaw and great pote maudit of the 20th century,
this 1947 drama is about acting as being, and being as nothingness. Small wonder that the existential
philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre embraced it so heartily.
Whether New York audience members will clasp this unlovable show (newly translated with
contemporary references and vulgarity by Mr. Andrews and Andrew Upton) to its bosom is another matter,
especially if theyve mortgaged their apartment to buy scalpers tickets. It is, to put it bluntly, a mess, in
ways both intentional and unintentional.
Featuring a multimedia, dimension-scrambling set by Alice Babidge that suggests the worlds ritziest
walk-in closet, the show throws in everything but the kitchen sink. No, scratch that; there is a kitchen sink.
It is loud, lurid and often impossible to follow, even if you know the play beforehand.
And I wouldnt have missed it for the world.
Thats largely because of Ms. Blanchett, who won the Oscar this year for Woody Allens Blue Jasmine
and has been seen to dazzling effect in New York with the Sydney Theater Company productions of A
Streetcar Named Desire and Uncle Vanya. Once again, she proves herself to be the ruling mutation
master among contemporary actresses.
Ms. Blanchett portrays Claire, the younger and (marginally) meeker of the two title characters, who
with her sister, Solange (Ms. Huppert), regularly acts out the fantasy ritual of murdering their rich and
gorgeous employer, known only as Mistress, played by Ms. Debicki. (On this night, Claire gets to be
Mistress, while Solange portrays Claire.) In doing so, Ms. Blanchett would seem to deploy every theatrical
tool that she has at her command, though I suspect she still holds a few in reserve to surprise us the next

time we see her.

Within minutes no, seconds she switches from the tones and postures of self-effacing servility to
raging aristocratic arrogance, from little-girl passivity to assaultive sexuality. She truly contains multitudes.
The wonder is that we believe every one of these self-contradicting displays, even though we know that
Claire and the actress playing her are just, uh, acting. And she forces us to the uneasy conclusion that
acting may be all there is in life.
That may also be implicit in the performance of Ms. Huppert, one of the French screens most fearless
and incisive stars. But its hard to make that assessment, given that her thick accent renders her
unintelligible for much of the time. Her scrappy, fierce Solange is a whirling dervish of acrobatic energy, for
sure.
She matches Ms. Blanchetts Claire in her intense, whiplash physicality but not in tonal variety. Ms.
Huppert also tends to mime her lines with fervent comic exaggeration, suggesting a visitor from the Planet
French Music Hall. Is there any way that Solange and Claire could really be sisters? And is it possible that
their Mistress, no matter how socially myopic she is, could ever confuse one with the other?
Im assuming theres method in the casting here. Genet wanted The Maids to be performed by men,
to emphasize the gap between a persons self-perception and the gaze of those who look upon him. Ms.
Hupperts blatant dissimilarity to Ms. Blanchett discounts any possibility of our accepting The Maids on
easy naturalistic terms.
So, too, does the productions use of simultaneous video projections (by Sean Bacon), captured by
camera operators who are visible behind the sets transparent side walls. Sometimes the camera creates
still lives out of the flowers, dresses and objets de luxe that are thrown about.
On other occasions, it lingers on the faces of the actresses, and you realize that the women on the
screen are not the same as the characters youve been watching through the haze of stage lights. (Nick

Schlieper did the intricate lighting.) Well, at least not in the cases of Ms. Blanchett and Ms. Huppert, who
appear much older and wearier in merciless close-up.
Ms. Debicki, who is in her early 20s, looks pretty much the same, which is ravishingly unlined. And
you see the ingenuity in Mr. Andrewss casting the Mistress as a spoiled debutante type rather than the
usual middle-aged society matron. Excess, after all, is an accessory that looks attractive only on the young.
This Mistress can still get away with changing her attitudes and emotions the way she changes clothes.
Once she makes her entrance more than halfway through the play, you see how precisely Claire has been
imitating her. Such exact mimicry makes both women seem pathetic, but especially Claire, because shes
now too old for that part.
That Ms. Debicki sometimes resembles the Cate Blanchett of 20 years ago makes the parallels all the
more disturbing. And the double act they perform toward the end of the productions uninterrupted 115
minutes makes you uncomfortable in ways I imagine might have pleased Genet, who was notoriously hard
to please.
By the way, in the very first pages of the Playbill for The Maids, youll find a double-page ad for a
Giorgio Armani fragrance, featuring an exquisitely serene model. Thats Ms. Blanchett. It seems highly
appropriate that onstage the same woman is tearing that image to shreds. This perfume goddess is stinking
to high heaven. I mean that as a major compliment.
The Maids
By Jean Genet; new translation by Benedict Andrews and Andrew Upton, based on an initial translation by Julie Rose; directed by Mr.
Andrews; designed by Alice Babidge; lighting by Nick Schlieper; music by Oren Ambarchi; video by Sean Bacon; sound by Luke Smiles;
dramaturge, Matthew Whittet; assistant to the designer, Sophie Fletcher; voice and text coach, Charmian Gradwell; a Sydney Theater
Company production, Mr. Upton, artistic director; Patrick McIntyre, executive director; presented by the Lincoln Center Festival, Boo
Froebel, producer. At City Center, 131 West 55th Street, Manhattan; 2125811212, lincolncenterfestival.org. Through Saturday. Running
time: 1 hour 30 minutes.
WITH: Cate Blanchett (Claire), Isabelle Huppert (Solange) and Elizabeth Debicki (Mistress).

A version of this review appears in print on August 11, 2014, on page C1 of the New York edition with the headline: Two Desperate
Dames, Spritzing on Personas.

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