Theater: Genet's The Maids--Are Transvestite French Maids Trump Voters?
The past week has placed different versions of America in high relief for me. I took the train out to elite Baltusrol Country Club in New Jersey to see the PGA golf championship, along with an overwhelmingly white male crew. The discussions on the train and golf course trended to (along with golf) business, cigars, money, and hot women. A more apparently uniform group of Trump supporters could not be found. As a tonic to this, I ventured into the Bowery last night to see The Maids (1947) by Jean Genet, an irascible, gay, ex-con, socialist, anarchist, sado-masochistic, innovative playwright and essayist who hung out with Camus, Foucalt, and Derrida. Simply getting to the Outliers Theater Company production was interesting. The very off-Broadway tiny playhouse was in a dingy, somewhat threatening neighborhood near Chinatown, where I passed the notorious Manhattan jail The Tombs, plus dark ambiguous storefronts like "The Shaftway" below, which I interpreted to be some sort
of a leather-type gay bar, similar to the Mineshaft and its ilk from pre-AIDS San Francisco. On arriving at the Access Theater, I walked up four hot flights of stairs (no elevator) past locked massive steel doors and advertisements about drug rehab sessions. I was handed a fan for the expected stifling heat on the fourth floor, and took my seat with an audience of 50, largely made of male singles and couples, largely dressed in black (I felt like an Easter egg in my summer pastels). Management turned on a single room air conditioner, but it was stopped when the play began, creating a mini sweatshop.
The Maids, based on a real case notorious in 1940's Paris in which two sisters working as maids killed their employer, then were found by police together in her bed. The case became symbolic for the French left wing of exploitation of the working class by the rich. Genet, always a lusty provocateur, mused that, while written for three female characters, the play might best be performed by young men instead. This production followed that inspiration. The two maids Solange and Claire, often wearing classic fetishist French maid costumes, were both men, sporting receding hairlines, buff physiques, and leg/armpit hair. The "madame" who employs them makes a brief, memorable appearance, here by Pooya Mohseni, a Persian male to female transsexual actor and activist of note (she was very French elite glamour-queen, without being campy). The summarized plot is that two maids/sisters rebel against their oppressive working conditions by dressing up in their madame's clothing while she is away, plotting to murder her. They then repeatedly act out the murder, with each sister taking alternately the role of madame and murderous maid. The role playing ends each time with implied sex between the sisters, including such sporting accoutrements as riding crops. Unfortunately, when the madame actually appears, their careful plotting goes awry, ending in the tragic and operatic death of one sister. The play was not brilliant, but was diverting. I was never really sure whether Genet intended camp, tragedy, or a sympathetic plea for worker rights. Maybe all three. My favorite actor was James Patrick Nelson, who played Solange with a wide range, very convincing in the S/M role playing and in the sense of surreality that pervaded the basic production, staged on a small surround stage with audience members framing the living room and sometimes sitting next to the actors. The surreal ambiance was aided by the audience members using provided delicate Chinese fans during the warm evening.
By the way, the rigidly dichotomous vision of America recounted in my earlier comments is not entirely true. "The Shaftway" is not a leather bar, but is actually is a warning to firemen that an empty elevator shaft lurks behind, protecting the firemen from falls in case they have to break into an upper floor window. On the train back from Baltusrol Country Club, two male millenial golf fans, bedecked in tacky golfer togs, discussed their upcoming wedding. Behind me at The Maids, two leather-type men alternately discussed the local gay bar scene and their day jobs on Wall Street brokering junk bonds. Lastly, it occurred to me that the two Genet maids would now be Trump voters, disgusted with their stagnant incomes, and with the benefits of the top 1%. Diversity rules! Chacun a son gout!
of a leather-type gay bar, similar to the Mineshaft and its ilk from pre-AIDS San Francisco. On arriving at the Access Theater, I walked up four hot flights of stairs (no elevator) past locked massive steel doors and advertisements about drug rehab sessions. I was handed a fan for the expected stifling heat on the fourth floor, and took my seat with an audience of 50, largely made of male singles and couples, largely dressed in black (I felt like an Easter egg in my summer pastels). Management turned on a single room air conditioner, but it was stopped when the play began, creating a mini sweatshop.
The Maids, based on a real case notorious in 1940's Paris in which two sisters working as maids killed their employer, then were found by police together in her bed. The case became symbolic for the French left wing of exploitation of the working class by the rich. Genet, always a lusty provocateur, mused that, while written for three female characters, the play might best be performed by young men instead. This production followed that inspiration. The two maids Solange and Claire, often wearing classic fetishist French maid costumes, were both men, sporting receding hairlines, buff physiques, and leg/armpit hair. The "madame" who employs them makes a brief, memorable appearance, here by Pooya Mohseni, a Persian male to female transsexual actor and activist of note (she was very French elite glamour-queen, without being campy). The summarized plot is that two maids/sisters rebel against their oppressive working conditions by dressing up in their madame's clothing while she is away, plotting to murder her. They then repeatedly act out the murder, with each sister taking alternately the role of madame and murderous maid. The role playing ends each time with implied sex between the sisters, including such sporting accoutrements as riding crops. Unfortunately, when the madame actually appears, their careful plotting goes awry, ending in the tragic and operatic death of one sister. The play was not brilliant, but was diverting. I was never really sure whether Genet intended camp, tragedy, or a sympathetic plea for worker rights. Maybe all three. My favorite actor was James Patrick Nelson, who played Solange with a wide range, very convincing in the S/M role playing and in the sense of surreality that pervaded the basic production, staged on a small surround stage with audience members framing the living room and sometimes sitting next to the actors. The surreal ambiance was aided by the audience members using provided delicate Chinese fans during the warm evening.
By the way, the rigidly dichotomous vision of America recounted in my earlier comments is not entirely true. "The Shaftway" is not a leather bar, but is actually is a warning to firemen that an empty elevator shaft lurks behind, protecting the firemen from falls in case they have to break into an upper floor window. On the train back from Baltusrol Country Club, two male millenial golf fans, bedecked in tacky golfer togs, discussed their upcoming wedding. Behind me at The Maids, two leather-type men alternately discussed the local gay bar scene and their day jobs on Wall Street brokering junk bonds. Lastly, it occurred to me that the two Genet maids would now be Trump voters, disgusted with their stagnant incomes, and with the benefits of the top 1%. Diversity rules! Chacun a son gout!
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