Jean Genet

The two plays collected in this volume represent Genet's first attempts to analyze the mores of a bourgeois society he had previously been content simply to vilify. In The Maids, two domestic workers, deeply resentful of their inferior social position, try to revenge themselves against society by destroying their employer. When their attempt to betray their mistress's lover to the police fails and they are in danger of being found out, they dream...

Two Parisian sisters, Solange and Claire, serve as maids to a cruel socialite, but whenever she leaves, the two act out a bizarre, complex role-playing psychodrama of domination and control that feeds their powerful lust for revenge upon the mistress they serve.