Word: genetically
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1990-1999
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...LORTEL, 98, patron of noncommercial theater; in New York City. Lortel was dedicated to providing creative havens for innovative artists. At her theaters in Connecticut and New York City, the onetime actress helped spark the careers of Sidney Lumet and Eva Marie Saint and showcased the works of Jean Genet, Sean O'Casey and Edward Albee...
...never gives us sufficient oppurtunity to do anything but distance ourselves from the characters. If this is the rationale behind Muchmore's labeling of the play as mediocre, then the same label must be applied to such plays as Waiting for Godot (Beckett), The Bald Soprano (Ionescu), The Maids (Genet) and The Homecoming (Pinter...
When it premiered in France in the 1950s, Jean Genet's The Maids must have been a shock. The play, based on the true story of two sisters who murdered their employer in the early 1930s, blends two kinds of provocation: it draws the audience into the violent, deranged fantasy world of the maids, and at the same time presents their madness as a product of class exploitation. Genet's original audience was being spooked and indicted at the same time...
This difference in context leaves the play as simply a case study, dependent on Genet's flushed and often histrionic writing to convince us that what we see on stage is really what it feels like to be mad. From the beginning, Genet encloses us in the hermetic mental world shared by Solange (Lois Folstein) and Claire (Mary Rutkowski), the sisters who are employed in the house of an unnamed "Madame" (Barbara Matteau). The play opens with what seems to be a maid's insurrection against Madame, as Solange inexplicably drops her servile tone and begins to abuse her mistress...
This disorientation is the first of many the play has in store, as the relationships between the sisters and their mistress seem to change totally from one minute to the next. By thrusting the audience into this complex psychological game without telling us the rules, Genet is able to communicate the sheer strangeness of the sisters' inner lives; some act of violence seems necessary to shatter the feverish atmosphere...