The Maids

The play follows two sisters, Claire and Solange, who are domestic servants for a woman they call Madame. When alone, they perform elaborate role-playing rituals in which they take turns impersonating Madame and rehearse scenarios of her humiliation and murder, while in real life they have denounced Madame's lover to the police.

Genet was inspired by the real-life Papin sisters, Christine and Léa, French maids who brutally murdered their employer and her daughter in Le Mans, France, in 1933. The case fascinated French intellectuals of the era and Genet transformed it into a ritualistic, theatrical exploration of class hatred and identity.

Claire and Solange alternate playing the roles of Madame, the maid, and themselves in their private ceremonies, creating a dizzying layering of performance and reality. Genet also famously suggested that the maids should ideally be played by male actors, further complicating the themes of identity and performativity.

Jean Genet wrote The Maids in 1947, and it was first staged in Paris. It has since become one of the most frequently produced works of absurdist and postwar French theatre, with notable productions worldwide.