NY Review: 'The Maids'

Director Jesse Berger cleverly turns theatergoers into backstage voyeurs in his new production of Jean Genet’s “The Maids.” The action for this energetic revival unfolds within the confines of a plywood cube containing an ornate, mirror-dotted, incarnadine boudoir into which the audience peers from four sides. It’s a handsome and rather ingenious creation from set designer Dane Laffrey, one that underscores the inherent theatricality of the script and its characters’ role-playing games. Concurrently, it’s a design and conceit that also proves to be the production’s undoing, because in its intimacy the performers’ strengths and weaknesses are put into sharp—and not always flattering—relief.

The standout—and perhaps breakthrough—performance comes from Jeanine Serralles, as Claire, the younger of the two titular servants. Serralles dives into the role with an often thrilling coquettish ardor and abandon as Claire and her sister, Solange (Ana Reeder), perform what has become a ritual for them: unleashing their anger over their servitude and their love for each other as they take turns playing their fickle, imperious mistress, who humiliates them cruelly.

Serralles proves adept at navigating the twists of Claire’s world when she and Solange realize that a trick they’ve played—implicating their mistress’ lover in a crime—has had an unexpected result. When Claire finds herself scrambling with Madame (J. Smith-Cameron) to make sure that this plot is not uncovered, Serralles deftly combines pitiable desperation with barking, forceful control.

As the woman the maids despise, Smith-Cameron is a comic delight, playing Madame as a vain platinum-blond sex kitten, who, refusing to accept her age, is corseted into an amusingly tight-fitting gold snakeskin gown (one of several gorgeous creations from costume designer Sara Jean Tosetti). Unfortunately, Smith-Cameron underplays Madame’s darker moments, making it hard to understand why Claire and Solange so loathe their employer. She’s certainly difficult and capricious but hardly a harridan.

Similarly, the estimable Reeder manages to traverse Solange’s internal emotional world in exacting detail, but she never completely gives herself over to the grandiosity of Genet’s language (the production uses Bernard Frechtman’s classic translation) and passions. Thus she undermines the potentially horrifying denouement, when Solange contemplates—in a soaring, almost operatic monologue—both the success and the failure with which she and her sister have met.

Presented by Red Bull Theater at the Theatre at St. Clement’s, 423 W. 46th St., NYC. March 15–April 1. Tue. and Wed., 7:30 p.m.; Thu. and Fri., 8 p.m.; Sat., 2 and 8 p.m.; Sun., 3 p.m. (212) 352-3101, (866) 811-4111, www.theatermania.com, or www.redbulltheater.com.