Teatreneu April 2026.

Two sisters. One employer. A game they play whenever she leaves the house.

Solange and Claire are maids. In Madame’s absence, they dress in her clothes and take turns being her. The game has rules, a script and an ending. It has never been finished.

Genet wrote The Maids in 1947, drawing on the case of the Papin sisters, whose crime shocked France in 1933. He was not interested in the crime. He was interested in what happens to people who spend their lives performing a role for someone else, and what they might do once they start performing it for themselves.

The text is exact and formal, and it refuses to settle. Power moves between the sisters and Madame, and between the sisters themselves. Every gesture is also an imitation of a gesture. By the end, it is hard to say who is playing whom.

Directed by Dara Gilroy.