THE MAIDS

“Excellent! Well acted with inspired and clever staging.” - Beth Accomando, KPBS Radio

“Fucking awesome.” - Normal Theatre Podcast

“Grotesque but also fabulous: performance artist Sympathie the Clown’s portrayal of Claire portraying Madame is purest camp. His hulking exuberance is nicely contrasted by co-star and director Connor Berkompas’ slight reserve. Even when Solange is enraged or agonized — “This is killing us, Claire” — he sounds one step removed from his own emotions. What I liked best, besides the twisted intimacy between Claire and Solange, was the show’s youthful energy and ambition. Jean-Paul Sartre wrote an introduction for [The Maids] that quoted Genet saying if he had a play written for women, he would cast adolescent boys. Sympathie and Berkompas aren’t adolescents, but they aren’t too far removed from it. Still, they ably convey characters who have long been accustomed to deprivation, and they make expert use of their few props — most notably, an absurdly long string of pearls and an oversized portrait of Audrey Hepburn as Holly Golightly — to make a sad world for their mad ladies to inhabit.” - The San Diego Reader

*This production originated at The Boston Conservatory in 2017