Review: THE MAIDS at Mad Cat + Dirty Gold

The Mad Cat Theatre, in partnership with Dirty Gold Theatre, is not being timid with audiences. According to their mission, Mad Cat “interprets classics and new works through rigorous text analysis, heightened specificity, and an embodied approach to character and world building… .” Their inaugural production of THE MAIDS should be evidence enough for us to know they take theatre and their mission seriously. THE MAIDS as produced by Mad Cat and Dirty Gold is also a superb study of the theatre of the absurd.

Jean Genet’s THE MAIDS is one of those plays where knowing just a little going in makes it more intriguing than it may appear on the surface. Two sisters, Claire (Maddie Scanlan) and Solange (Allison Paranka) work as maids for a wealthy woman known simply as Madame (Angelina Castillo). When Madame is away, the sisters perform elaborate private rituals in which they take turns being Madame and being the servant. What begins as role-play gradually becomes something much more dangerous. THE MAIDS are entrapped in an oppressive personal situation within an oppressive system. Strangely, in imagining escaping Madame’s oppression, Claire and Solange repeatedly recreate it to its tragic extent. By taking turns playing mistress and servant, their rebellion is trapped inside a system they resent.

As you might imagine, this is an intense, actor-driven play, made more so by director Maggie Scanlan’s deliberate and exacting direction. Put it inside one of the most intimate venues I've visited in the city and it reflects to us almost too well the sense of oppression Claire and Solange feel in the play. A stroke of genius really, if you’re not claustrophobic. In other words, we’re invited to experience the entrapment the maids feel, right alongside them.

THE MAIDS is an absurdist play that involves role play, so critiquing actors either favorably or unfavorably becomes a metaphysical exercise itself. That said, Paranka and Scanlan (Maddie, not Maggie) relay to us both the underlying hypervigilance and the sometimes playful melodramatic escapism the two perform to help them cope. Castillo may not get as much stage time in her role as Madame, but she proves a perfect contrast to the reality of her character’s impassioned affectations and the role play of her servants. I found her particularly intriguing. At some point, you might wonder who is gaslighting whom, such is Castillo’s fragile interpretation of Madame. Paranka and Scanlan portray the volatile Claire and the wary Solange with an intimacy that effectively evokes a discomfort in the tiny space we share with them.

In some cases, we don’t know if we can move, not necessarily because the space is that small, but because we’ll be noticed as out of line, just like the sisters. That said, pacing never gets so stagnant that the show doesn’t breathe. If there’s anything to note, the delineation between the sisters as themselves and their donning of the roles of Madame and Claire sometimes blurs. But. Is that in and of itself part of Genet’s intent?

The set is presentational, tight by circumstance. The lighting is atmospheric and practical. All of it adds up to a unique experience for Austin theatre goers. It’s a wonderful study of what happens when the grotesque and the absurd are given nowhere to hide. We all feel a little…well, trapped. And we should. The whole thing enfolds Genet’s mise en abyme, that hall of mirrors, that makes the show an experience and not just a play to see. Well played, Mad Cat, well played.

THE MAIDS
by Jean Genet
Directed by Maggie Scanlan

Co-presented with Dirty Gold Theatre
August 7 – August 16
Smelt House
2511 E 6th Street
Austin

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