A must-see for fans of classics

Les bonnes polished production

Théâtre du Rideau Vert’s production of Jean Genet’s 1947 classic Les bonnes (The Maids) is the most polished I’ve ever seen. But it looks far better than it resonates.

Director Marc Béland has cast well, pitting Markita Boies and Lise Roy, as the two maids, against the regal Louise Turcot, as Madame, the woman who keeps her servants in a kind of pseudo-benevolent indentured slavery that destroys the soul.

Les bonnes, which was loosely based on a true story of two French maids who murdered their employer and her daughter in 1933, makes The Nanny Diaries look like kiddie lit.

It depicts a very nasty class war between women of different means.

Prior to the Wednesday night preview I attended, a group of chanting student protesters (wearing clown noses) expressing concern about a modest rise in their tuition fees, were waving placards outside TRV. If they were theatre students, they must have known that a play by a subversive theatre radical who spent much of his early life in jail was about to begin.

Genet’s works, such as Le balcon (The Balcony), set in a whorehouse, and Les nègres (The Blacks), which dealt with race issues, were revolutionary in their time and often revived in the ’70s and ’80s. But it’s been a while since I’ve seen one in Montreal.

Les bonnes begins, deceptively, with two women sparring in a boudoir.

One of them seems to be a grande dame, the other her servile, but secretly hostile maid. Claire (Boies), who has taken on the airs of an aristocrat, calls her sister, Solange (Roy), by her own name, Claire, within their sado-masochistic role-playing game. Then the alarm clock rings, signalling the imminent return of the real Madame, and the two women revert to their real, servile selves. Claire’s hasty shedding of her borrowed ball gown elicits a round of laughter from those members of the audience, unfamiliar with the play, who have been taken in by Claire’s faux Madame.

A phone call f rom Madame’s lover, referred to simply as Monsieur, reveals that he has been released from jail.

This ups the ante. Claire’s denunciation of him to the authorities may soon put her in danger. Murder becomes a necessity for survival, rather than just a fantasy. By the time Madame arrives home, her faithful servants have chosen their poison, to be delivered in a tea cup.

“Les bonnes ... makes The Nanny Diaries look like

kiddie lit.”

In this production, Charlotte Rouleau’s decor, Genevieve Lizotte’s costumes, lighting by Anne-marie Rodrigue-lecours and Sylvio Palmieri’s discreet musical interventions all fuse together in perfect visual and aural pitch.

Béland’s direction, perhaps too faithful to Genet’s stage instructions requiring backs to the audience in odd places, doesn’t do what it should for the performance of these three fine actors. Turcot fares best, delivering a finely tuned performance that taps Madame’s charm as well as her ruthlessness. Roy comes into her own in the final scene, as Solange rebels, at last, with a wild speech. But Boies is rather muted, not up to her usual flair or level of projection. Perhaps her simmering Claire will hit boiling point during the run.

No matter, for anyone with a serious interest in the French classics, this Les bonnes remains a must. We’re not likely to see another one soon.

Les bonnes, by Jean Genet, continues at Théâtre du Rideau Vert, 4664 St. Denis St., until April 28. Call 8441793 or visitrideauvert.qc.ca