The Department of Theater presents Honors Acting Thesis THE MAIDS by Jean Genet in the LPAC Frear Ensemble Theatre March 1st, 2013 at 8PM, March 2nd at 2PM and 8PM and March 3rd at 2PM. Jean Genet (1910 – 1986) was a noted French author, playwright, and political activist. Genet believed in theater as an incendiary event and his plays reflect themes that ignore traditional plot and character psychology. Many of his works rely on ritual, transformation, illusion and interchangeable identities. Very loosely based on a true story of two maids who brutally murdered their employers, THE MAIDS takes us on a journey where role playing and reality dangerously melt together. The two sisters in the story are too intimate with each other, too close and only survive their lives in service by playing at becoming their mistress. Working for their glamorous and mysterious employer known as Madame, social oppression, sisterhood, enslavement, and sexual deprivation imprison these two minds in a dark game where nobody wins. The elaborate interchange leads the two sisters towards a neverending morbid fantasy and all that remains is the floating red train of Madame’s elegant dress…

Directed by Emmanuelle Delpech with Jeannette Leopold ’13, Sophia Naylor ’13, and Meryl Sands ’13. Costumes by Alexandra Huber-Weiss ’13.