Si­mon Lee

It's all too rare to en­counter mod­ern/mod­ernist the­atre on the Trinida­di­an stage. Tru­ly chal­leng­ing roles for ex­pe­ri­enced or as­pir­ing ac­tors are con­se­quent­ly an­oth­er rar­i­ty.Play­ing for laughs and its at­ten­dant flaw of over-act­ing have un­for­tu­nate­ly be­come the norm for lo­cal ac­tors, how­ev­er gift­ed. In the con­text of this wilder­ness, it was dou­bly re­fresh­ing to see some of the grad­uands of the first-ever co­hort of UTT The­atre Arts BA pro­gramme tack­le the wide rang­ing de­mands and chal­lenges of Jean Genet's one act play The Maids, at the Lit­tle Carib the­atre on March 5-6.

While Genet's script has been la­beled as "Ab­sur­dist", in that it large­ly ig­nores the con­ven­tions of re­al­ist dra­ma, what the stu­dent pro­duc­tion re­vealed more than 60 years af­ter the play's pre­miere in Paris, was its true affin­i­ty with psy­chodra­ma. It might be far more pro­duc­tive, in terms of in­ter­pre­ta­tion to com­pare Genet's work with the claus­tro­pho­bic in­ces­tu­ous imag­i­nary of clas­si­cal Greek tragedy � no­tably Sopho­cles' Oedi­pus Rex, or his Antigone (a mod­ern French ver­sion by Jean Anouilh per­formed on­ly three years be­fore The Maids).Oth­er use­ful com­par­isons could be made with the works of the Mar­quis de Sade (sex­u­al slav­ery, sa­do-masochism, dom­i­na­tion), Catholic pornog­ra­ph­er Georges Bataille (eroti­cism and death) and the au­ra of men­ace which per­vades more con­tem­po­rary works, like Samuel Beck­ett's Wait­ing for Godot (1953), or Harold Pin­ter's The Birth­day Par­ty (1957).

If we are to con­sid­er "Ab­sur­dism" (mean­ing­less hu­man ex­is­tence, where com­mu­ni­ca­tion breaks down and log­ic sur­ren­ders to the ir­ra­tional and il­log­i­cal) then it be­comes ap­par­ent that be­sides be­ing an ex­cel­lent test piece for ac­tors, The Maids has much that is rel­e­vant to con­tem­po­rary Trinida­di­an so­ci­ety – from the noise and cussing to the fre­quent oc­cur­rences of sex­u­al vi­o­lence, in­cest and dom­i­na­tion. The psy­chopathol­o­gy of Mas­ter (or in this case Mis­tress) and slave re­la­tions, colo­nial, post­colo­nial and neo­colo­nial re­la­tions, all con­tribute to fur­ther res­o­nances, as does Genet's per­sona �as sex­u­al and so­cial de­viant de­fy­ing and sub­vert­ing the norms of bour­geois so­ci­ety.It's high­ly un­like­ly that a pro­fes­sion­al pro­duc­tion of The Maids would be suc­cess­ful (in box of­fice terms) with Trinidad's (large­ly bour­geois) the­atre-go­ing pub­lic. For all the chat about gay rights, it's even more doubt­ful that Genet could out­ride the deeply en­trenched sub­stra­tum of ho­mo­pho­bia, which is an­oth­er mark­er of lo­cal hypocrisy.

In light of all of the above, it was a brave choice for a stu­dent pro­duc­tion and a sin­gu­lar sign of se­ri­ous com­mit­ment to dra­ma, in its most prob­lem­at­ic and taboo-trou­bling form, ex­ca­vat­ing el­e­ments of the hu­man con­di­tion, which we would most­ly like to ig­nore, but al­ways at the cost of fur­ther dam­age.The set de­sign (by Ed­win Er­miny) com­bined re­al­is­tic Parisian el­e­gance (chan­de­liers, an­tique fur­ni­ture) with a gauze back­drop lit in mauve, (sug­ges­tive of the un­re­al­i­ty of the Maids' sa­do-masochis­tic role play) and five bare wood pic­ture frames (whose sto­ry board empti­ness echoed the ul­ti­mate fu­til­i­ty of the con­cen­tric scenes en­act­ed).Claire, the old­er sis­ter (played by Kar­i­an Forde) in her role as Madame, ini­ti­at­ed the pas de deux of degra­da­tion, abuse, re­vul­sion and ha­tred, to her younger sis­ter Solange's "Claire" (played by Aray­na Mo­hammed). Forde in bur­lesque style par­o­died Madame's haugh­ti­ness and its ob­verse self-pity per­fect­ly, to Mo­hammed's over­ly sub­mis­sive mouse, (eyes cast down, wring­ing hands) who in an in­stant was ca­pa­ble of trans­form­ing in­to a wild­cat, talons flash­ing.

The slip­page of iden­ti­ty (Solange/Claire, Madame/Claire) served to ac­cen­tu­ate the Maids' help­less­ness, two mice play­ing while the cat is away, but play­ing in a trap from which the on­ly pos­si­ble es­cape is the mur­der they can­not com­mit. The un­easy de­pen­den­cy bond be­tween cap­tor and cap­tive, tor­tur­er and tor­tured, pow­er­ful and pow­er­less ("She'll cor­rupt us with her sweet­ness") was well de­vel­oped in the sis­ters' self-abase­ment� "No­body loves us �She does, she adores us like she adores her pink enam­el toi­let seat" as well as ref­er­ences to "sti­fling" and "suf­fo­cat­ing". Stretch­ing the homi­ci­dal ten­sion were sib­ling sex­u­al ri­val­ries (over the milk­man as well as Madame's jailed lover) sim­mer­ing be­low the role play and erupt­ing mo­men­tar­i­ly to dis­place ha­tred for Madame, for ha­tred of each oth­er com­pound­ed with the self-ha­tred of the dom­i­nat­ed.A phone call from Madame's lover to say that he's out of jail on bail re­calls the sis­ters from theirHam­let-style pro­cras­ti­na­tion, as Claire who in her own role de­clares: "I'm ready" (to kill) but im­me­di­ate­ly un­der­mines her af­fir­ma­tive vi­o­lence with the pa­thet­ic re­al­i­ty of her en­forced do­mes­tic hell:"I'm tired of hav­ing a stove for an al­tar." On ten­ter­hooks an­i­mat­ed by Madame's an­tic­i­pat­ed ar­rival, the role play­ing reach­es fre­net­ic pro­por­tions of abuse and ab­ne­ga­tion ("I want to com­fort you but I know I dis­gust you. I'm re­pul­sive to you.") as roles are switched. Mo­hammed han­dled her tran­si­tions from sub­mis­sive to so­ciopath, as ably as she did the il­lu­so­ry lull on the di­van, the younger sis­ter lur­ing her old­er sib­ling with erot­ic in­ces­tu­ous­ness dis­guised as com­fort, be­fore Claire cuts her off with a peremp­to­ry–"No weak­ness." A tea tray, re­plete with sil­ver teapot, con­tents laced with sleep­ing pills, is hasti­ly pre­pared.

Madame's ar­rival in­tro­duces a vaude­ville-like in­ter­lude, tem­porar­i­ly sus­pend­ing the sis­ters' psy­chodra­ma for com­ic ten­sion over whether she'll drink the poi­soned tea. In her cameo role Kem­lon Nero con­veyed the nec­es­sary histri­on­ic nar­cis­sism, vacu­ity and spite mak­ing the maids' ha­tred cred­i­ble. Her con­tin­u­al ref­er­ences to "the pe­nal colony" which in her delu­so­ry mar­tyr­dom she's pre­pared to fol­low Mon­sieur to, serve to twist the screws tighter on her do­mes­tics' de­men­tia, as do her re­tract­ed gifts of dress and fur coat and her fi­nal re­jec­tion of the prof­fered cup of tea in favour of cel­e­bra­to­ry cham­pagne once she's learns Mon­sieur is out on bail.Madame's ex­it sig­nals the de­scent in­to an in­fer­no of psy­chosis, as the sis­ters' switched role play (Solange/Madame, Claire as Claire) "skips pre­lim­i­nar­ies" and full throt­tles in­to the ex­treme abuse and self ha­tred of the trapped and pow­er­less. "Crawl like a worm!" com­mands Solange, be­fore the back­drop light turns red and Claire dis­ap­pears off­stage. Mo­hammed was con­vinc­ing enough in her fi­nal de­range­ment for the au­di­ence to be­lieve that "Madame is dead, laid out on the linoleum, stran­gled with a dish­cloth...This time Solange has gone through with it". But the trap has long been sprung, and Claire drifts on from the wings as Solange in­tones the dirge of the maids' re­al and self-in­flict­ed hell: "Madame must sleep and you must stay awake."

What­ev­er the as­sess­ment the UTT ex­am­in­ers make, from an au­di­ence per­spec­tive this stu­dent pro­duc­tion met pro­fes­sion­al stan­dards. The two main ac­tress­es rarely fal­tered, no mean achieve­ment when you're on­stage for 90 min­utes plus. The in­ten­si­ty of the script and its de­mands of switch­ing mood with­out los­ing mo­men­tum were well met. For this crit­ic at least, all stu­dent mem­bers of cast and crew de­serve ho­n­ours and if not cum laude, cer­tain­ly to well earned ap­plause.