The Maids
By Jean Genet
Directed by Robert Meyvisch
Jean Genet's "The Maids", has been a staple in many a company's play list. Loosely based on the true story of the Papin sisters - French live-in maids who, after years of abuse, brutally murdered their mistress and her daughter - Genet takes the story and weaves a tragic and tangled web of illusion versus reality.
Each evening, Solange and Claire, two maids, re-enact their fantasies of abuse and vengeance on their exuberant and demanding mistress, each of them enthralled in a spiral of ever-deepening mental anguish. Until one evening something happens that puts them at risk of being found out...
With themes as the blurring between reality and illusion and the nature of identity, "The Maids" also explores the excesses of class and authority, culminating in a tense and dark psychological drama that dives deep into the shadowy crevasses of two fractured minds.
From the point of performance, "The Maids" is rich, deep, dark, challenging, edgy and not to be underestimated. Emotions run very high, in all directions and for each role, and each part has a physicality that is vital to the play.
When
Friday 17th April 2026 - 8pm
Saturday 18th April 2026 - 8pm
Sunday 19th April 2026 - 3pm
Where
Theater Het Klokhuis
Parochiaanstraat 4, Antwerpen
Character List
This 90-minute one-act play without interval is with three robust female parts:
Solange
One of the maids, her obsession with Madame throws her from adoration to deeply rooted hatred. The more outspoken of the two, she often takes the lead in the daily "ceremony" the maids perform.
Claire
The other maid, follows Solange in her ruthless excursions into her own dark fantasies, although she has plenty of her own. Her intimate relationship with Solange can switch to razor-sharp rivalry as the two collide.
Madame
Exuberant, operatic, larger than life and living example of the ruling class, Madame is self-centered, focussed only on her relationship with her lover, and treating her two maids as part of the furniture in her boudoir.