Yesterday's performance of Jean Genet's The Maids by Sydney Theatre Company extended the dynamics of theatre and almost blurred the margin between theatre and cinema by using the onscreen projection throughout to foreground motifs, props and expressions in close ups as the cameras kept moving in and out from all sides...it was like two parallel experiences, one theatrical and the other, cinematic...that was consistent with the play in the sense that Genet's maids are role-players: 'actors' in a self-reflexive way and for this performance, we had two big names from cinema (Cate Blanchett and Isabelle Huppert)...as if the screen actresses stepped into the play from their own world of filmic acting and carried their reel-identities with them...
I really liked the way the performance exploited the hysteric and melodramatic elements in the play because that is an unmistakable aspect of Genet's art which is so easy to neglect due to his prevalent image as an 'intellectual', 'anti-theatrical' and 'anti-realist' playwright.
I appreciated the fact that the innovation in the production stayed within Genet's own world for example the multiple glass walls which created a strong mirroring effect reminded a Genet-lover like me of his play The Balcony and the general importance of mirroring techniques in his theatre.
The performances were superlative...
A great experience...
I really liked the way the performance exploited the hysteric and melodramatic elements in the play because that is an unmistakable aspect of Genet's art which is so easy to neglect due to his prevalent image as an 'intellectual', 'anti-theatrical' and 'anti-realist' playwright.
I appreciated the fact that the innovation in the production stayed within Genet's own world for example the multiple glass walls which created a strong mirroring effect reminded a Genet-lover like me of his play The Balcony and the general importance of mirroring techniques in his theatre.
The performances were superlative...
A great experience...
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