The Maids and Deathwatch Two Plays by Jean Genet

Rating:
Summary: Horrific , violent existentialism at its most absurd.
Review: Genet based 'The Maids' on an actual event, one he felt a certain kin-ship with. In 1933 french police found Madame Lancelin and her daughter face down, in their living room, utterly mutilated. The eyes had disappeared, all teeth had been knocked out, fragments of bone and flesh were strewn about the floor, walls covered in blood. Upstairs the two servant-maids, the Papin sisters, were found naked, huddled together in one of two single beds. Immediately they confessed. Immediately, also, the papers picked up the story. The public was facinated how these two soft-spoken, mild-mannered girls, without provocation could have acted with such wild brutality. Senseless, irrational violence - Genet's speciality. He uses this story as a means to attack conformaty. A massive revolt against obedience, servitude, and the upperclass. A bloody triumph of individuality . Like other of Genet's works, it primaraly is concerned with Man's free will, or lack there-of. It is an existential story , revealing the darker sides of freedom, and the horror of the responsibility that comes with it. A tale worthy of Genet's genious. Exellent translation. Fans of Genet should also Check out Octave Mirbeau.

Rating:
Summary: Horrific , violent existentialism at its most absurd.
Review: Genet based 'The Maids' on an actual event, one he felt a certain kin-ship with. In 1933 french police found Madame Lancelin and her daughter face down, in their living room, utterly mutilated. The eyes had disappeared, all teeth had been knocked out, fragments of bone and flesh were strewn about the floor, walls covered in blood. Upstairs the two servant-maids, the Papin sisters, were found naked, huddled together in one of two single beds. Immediately they confessed. Immediately, also, the papers picked up the story. The public was facinated how these two soft-spoken, mild-mannered girls, without provocation could have acted with such wild brutality. Senseless, irrational violence - Genet's speciality. He uses this story as a means to attack conformaty. A massive revolt against obedience, servitude, and the upperclass. A bloody triumph of individuality . Like other of Genet's works, it primaraly is concerned with Man's free will, or lack there-of. It is an existential story , revealing the darker sides of freedom, and the horror of the responsibility that comes with it. A tale worthy of Genet's genious. Exellent translation. Fans of Genet should also Check out Octave Mirbeau.

Rating:
Summary: 5 stars for 'the Maids'
Review: I have not read 'Deathwatch' yet but the'Maids' lived up to what I was expecting from Genet. To learn more about Genet, I would highly recommend his biography by Edmund White - this is one of the best biographies I have read.
The 'Maids' is a play in one act with three charactors. Within this act Genet captures the role-playing of the classes of society rather brilliantly. He does not capitalize on the brutality of the actual case of murder (it is based on an actual murder) but looks instead at the motivations for doing it. There is a film adaptation of the story called 'Murderous Maids' which is pretty good but focuses mainly on the act of murder - and throws in a lesbian twist.