preliminaries and “get right into the transformation.” Solange is “dazzled” by Claire’s appearance in the white dress, but Claire cuts short her adoration, demanding that the insults begin immediately. Claire spews out abuse, Solange begins hers. She removes a riding whip from the wall, forcing Claire to crawl on her knees. Claire becomes frightened and screams for help, begging Solange to come to herself, but Solange stalks her through the room, menacingly, stopping only when Claire appears to be ill. Then she helps Claire from the room. For a moment the stage is empty, and then Solange reappears. The audience does not know whether she has killed Claire. She begins a long monologue, speaking first with relief as though Madame were dead and she were the murderer. Her fantasy continues: She envisions herself dead, with Madame at her funeral; she converses with Madame, with Monsieur, with the inspector, but her imagination focuses upon Madame and her treatment of the maids. Her speech alternates between exaggerated pride and self-hatred, as she claims that she has murdered Claire. She sees herself marching to the gallows, head held high, accompanied by the servants of the neighborhood costumed in their finest livery. During the last part of her speech Claire enters. Playing Madame, she sits, calls Solange “Claire,” and asks her to pour a cup of the tea. Solange, breaking out of her role, says that she is tired, that they both should go to bed. Claire persists, drags Solange to her feet, and insults and taunts her, until at last Solange passes her the poisoned cup. Claire drinks; as her body slumps to the floor, Solange continues her fantasy of freedom.

The Maids is a tightly knit, long one-act play, cleverly interwoven with devices that not only reinforce the themes of the elusiveness of reality and the ineffability of identity but also contribute to the powerful theatricality of the play.

The play is simply but masterfully constructed. The text is tripartite. The first section presents the game and the maids’ fantasies; the second begins with Madame’s entrance, rises to the play’s climax as she avoids taking the tea, and ends with her exit; the third includes the repetition of the game and Claire’s suicide. The mystical number three becomes significant: There are three divisions to the play, and there are three characters, Claire, Solange, and Madame, each of whom mirrors the other.

The mirror is the primary symbol of Jean Genet’s quest for reality and identity. In the opening scene there are three: the hand mirror in which Claire admires herself, the dressing-table mirror into which she also gazes, and Madame’s shoes which reflect Solange as she polishes them. Later, when Madame arrives home, she speaks to her own reflection in the mirror and then to Claire’s reflection. If the self is complex and elusive, in the mirror it becomes appearance, nothing more than what it is. The reflection is the symbol of an uncertain world of appearances.

Genet uses an auditory device with the ringing of bells. Again, there are three: the alarm clock that halts the playing of the game, the telephone with the news of Monsieur’s release from prison, and the doorbell announcing Madame’s return. Each bell is a surprise and breaks the action of the scene. As with the ringing of the bells during the Catholic Mass, each bell heightens the dramatic tension.

Genet decorates the stage with laces, flowers, and costumes. The flowers, the lace, and the trappings of Madame’s bedroom are real and complement Madame’s identity; the costumes mask and deceive. In the opening scene Claire, costumed as Madame, plays out her role in the play-within-a-play. The appearance masks the reality; the audience cannot trust its eyes. Solange, dressed as a maid, behaves as a maid in their ritual game; she is a maid, but not the maid she appears to be. In other words, costume creates an appearance, but the reality is unknowable. Genet repeats this kind of deception at the end of the play, when he deliberately misleads the audience into believing that Solange has killed Claire. In doing so, he demonstrates once again the elusiveness of reality.

Ironic touches permeate the play. Because of her authority and position, a mistress is expected to be older than her maids, but Genet describes Madame as ten years younger. The names “Claire” and “Solange” suggest images of brightness, clarity, the sun, and angels; instead, the characters are heavy and earthbound. Verbal irony occurs when Madame accuses the maids of trying to kill her with their “flowers and kindness.” Dramatic irony occurs when the audience sees that the telephone receiver has been misplaced. Each of these examples distances the audience from the play and underscores the artifice of the playwright.

A theatrical craftsman, Genet uses these visual, auditory, and ironic devices, which are more apparent to the viewer than to the reader, to enhance the performance and to emphasize his themes.