The Street Theatre | Review by Samson Ullinger
Class is Permanent in The Street’s Absurdist Ritual
27 May 2025
The Maids by Jean Genet is a challenging work, as classics within the Theatre of the Absurd tend to be, and the current production at The Street Theatre meets this challenge quite well, but not without room for improvement. Stellar lighting and set design transpose the play’s setting from the bourgeoisie of France to a setting more reminiscent of late 60s or early 70s London. The analysis of class that underpins the play remains well intact. The plot focuses on two sisters working as maids plotting to kill their employer, who is only referred to as The Mistress. Their rehearsal of this plot has a highly ritualistic and poetic nature to it which is conveyed very well by Martin Crimp’s translation.
The two leads, Christina Falsone and Sophia Marzano, put in transfixing performances. Christina Falsone’s Solange is powerful and she clearly has a very strong command of the text but at times her stage presence can be a little underwhelming in comparison to Marzano’s, part of which is simply due to the different demands inherent to the roles of Solange and Claire. Natasha Vickery has a memorable performance as The Mistress, easily holding the stage and leaving a lasting impact, despite the relative brevity of her role.
Sophia Marzano’s performance as Claire has an amazing physicality, adding an almost dancelike quality to her movements, though in places she seems to struggle with balancing the artistic usage of inscrutable or nonsensical dialogue with appropriate emotion; her delivery, at times, sounding more like a talented live poetry reading than the dialogue of a character.
Taking into account this was the first preview, this is likely an issue that will resolve itself quickly once the run has begun, but it highlights an interesting aspect of many Theatre of the Absurd plays, that no matter how bizarre the actions or words of a character might be to the exterior viewer, within that character’s world, they are making decisions which they expect to have concrete outcomes – forcing us to consider if our world is as arbitrary in its rules as the world of the play.
Overall, I would highly recommend seeing this production of The Maids, which delivers a solid production of an entertaining classic of philosophical theatre.
The Maids runs 23 May – 8 June 2025 at The Street. For bookings, see thestreet.org.au.
Samson Ullinger was born in Adelaide. They became interested in theatre gradually, but a key turning point was studying Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf in high school. After moving to Canberra, they did several theatre related courses as a part of their English degree, which spurred their interest in becoming a playwright and dramaturg. Since finishing that degree, they have kept involved in the Canberra theatre scene.
