28 - Wednesday, March 11, 1992 - THEATR E.. North Shore News ? House of mirrors Presentation House cast consiruct arresting emotional drama | The Maids, Presentation House Theatre, Directed by Micheal Fera. To March 21. Phone 986-1351. angie of the room. A very smal! room, stifling, and the F ULL-length mirrors, skewed, reflecting from every cloying odor of flowers. This is the set for Jean Genet’s The Maids, a fine Presentation House production that holds you in its grip like a murderer-lover playing with his victim. The set design is by no means incidental. The play is about the reflections of opposites, the oppasites of the maids Claire and Solange and their “Madame” whom they grudg- ingly serve: Add into the formula, '. affection and envy, love and ~ hatred, beauty and ugliness'‘and - ~ you have a play that coils arid un- coils with ambivalences. The play begins with a maid, Claire, bowing and scraping to her Madame, who, in her pink, beflowered boudoir, struts and frets about'the trivialities of her well-placed life.: Both characters are made up with white face paint and rosy red circles for rouge — there is a startling symbolic quality to their drama, like a mime acting earnestly in a void. The masquerade becomes in- creasingly grotesque as the maid stoops and snivels and the Madame hurls insults at her sub- ject. But then the action flips and now the maid throws venomous invections at Madame. An alarm clock rings and the characters snap out of (into) char- _ * acter. Suddenly the audience real- . izes they have been watching, not “the play, but the maids’ play, in which they act out both their degrading submission and their. indignation at ‘‘Madame.’” They assume their opposite. However, they are always thwarted in their efforts to snuff Madame in their play. Now the real | version of Madame enters, Played by Corinne Hebden, » Madame is a breezy, superficial well-to-do, a ‘type,’ as are the maids. And even Madame is caught up in the interplay of op- Barbara Black THEATRE REVIEW posites, declaring to the maids, “You are our distorting mirrors.’ - She, too, engages in her own masquerade, posing in front of the mirror, trying out different ways to greet her lover — “‘gay,’ “wistful? — who has been freed from jail. (By the way, was it my imagina- tion or did her marvelous hat look like an upside down shoe?) Genet never makes it easy for the audience. His play is rife with contradictions that keep us ill-at- ease. The two sisters are revolting in their competitiveness and mutual domineering and pathetic in their instantaneous submission to Madame. Madame is likable and joily, then fickle and insensitive. Somewhere in this profusion of opposites and reflections lies the truth. The maids’ dissatisfaction with their social station fuels a revolt of . the spirit. But, unlike a tragedy where the characters would be seen as noble in their endeavor to escape, Genet’s characters achieve a sort of satanic nobility — they realize victory by succumbing to violence and destruction. You see, Madame’s lover was jailed thanks to Claire’s faked let- ters, a plan that failed. Now, steeped in misery at failing to cause their mistress misery (“Her joy feeds on our shame,’ NORTH SHORE COMMUNITY CONCERTS Renewal of 1992-93 Membership . Season Deadiine — March 21/92 New applicants will be processed in order received, ; Campaign membership. for next season is scheduled for March 36 daily to April 3, 1992, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. in the lobby of Centennial Theatre “‘Druzhba’’ Unified States — Soviet Folk Dance Group appear Monday March 16th, 1992, 8 p.m. in the Centennial Theatre 23rd & Lonsdale, North Vancouver ADMISSION BY MEMBERSHIP ONLY _e PHONE 985-1608 or 988-8696 Viva Wl says Solange), the maids plan to kill Madame by spiking her tea. When that effort fails, they commiserate by engaging in their play within a play, this time determined to snuff out their op- posite, the play-acting taking on a sinister, obsessive quality. A series of ambiguities ensues, in which it appears that Solange has killed Claire. In her act of ritual murder of Claire, Solange becormes Made- moiselle Solange Lemercier, in- famous woman led to the gallows by an entourage of domestics, beautifully attired, admired. But then Claire re-enters, costumed as Madame and declares her intention that Madame must be done away with, now assuming power from Solange. The final act of murder-suicide is a victory over oppression, both a creative and destructive expres- sion of the maids’ humanity. Finaily they are not vile smells, Permanent Hydrating Resource Hydrative is the indispensable resource of instant, ° deep and permanent hydration for your skin! 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The audience on opening night - left with their eyeballs looking “peeled.” The Maids continues at Pres- entation House till March 21. - Offer vaiid at the foltewing store(s): Park Royal Shopping Centre 911 Park Royal S. WEST VANCOUVER (604) 926-1114 ee ee a a a ee ee ee = j $5 I ! I | I u [§ ~i Value when two or more people have two or more lunch or dinner entrees GO Value when six or more people have six or more lunch or dinner entrees 1 Value when four or more people have four or more lunch or dinner entrees Value when eight or more people have eight or more lunch or dinner entrees. Ne cee mene ce ee es es nD GD SED ee aD ees ee ce OO eee ee ees es oe ee ee Capilano Mali 935 Marine Drive NORTH VANCOUVER (604) 986-7942 WE ACCEPT es Emerald Park Restaurant and Banquet Facilities Reservations Recommended 988-8353