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Jean Genet (1910-1986) is one of the most controversial and challenging French writers of the 20th Century. His major works include the semi-autobiographical novels Our Lady of the Flowers (1943), Querelle de Brest (1947), and The Thief’s Journal (1949) and the plays The Maids (1947), Deathwatch (1944), The Balcony (1956), The Blacks (1959) and The Screens (1961).
Genet was a vagrant, a thief, a criminal, and a homosexual. He was also incredibly independent, driven and opportunistic. His wrote his first major work, Our Lady of Flowers (1943) on brown paper in a prison cell. A prison guard caught him, confiscated his writings and burned them. Genet then rewrote the whole thing again. On his release, he sought out Jean Cocteau who was impressed with Genet’s writing, which complemented his own existential work and introduced Genet to other influential French artists, such as Jean-Paul Sartre. It was due to Cocteau and Sartre, as well as Picasso, that Genet was published. They also helped prevent him from returning to jail.
Sartre went on to write a detailed analysis of Genet’s work called Saint Genet (1952). This so disturbed Genet that he did not write again for a number of years, but when he did, it was to create some of the most explosive and controversial plays of the 1950s. Furthermore, Genet inspired many other artists from different fields, including Jacques Derrida, Lindsay Kemp, Angela Davis, Michel Foucault, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, and David Bowie.
It is perhaps difficult to fully appreciate today the absolute radicalism of Genet and his considerable impact and influence – at least in Australia. I was reminded of this in a recent radio interview here in Adelaide, promoting a production of Genet’s The Maids that I am directing, with the wonderful, highly informed and experienced Peter Goers. Peter questioned me as to why Genet is not done much anymore. At the time, I was a bit thrown by Peter’s accurate question. I muttered something about Sartre, that Genet’s theatre, according to Sartre is the theatre of ‘fury’ and ‘hate’. This is most certainly true and is an integral part of The Maids in its murderous and suicidal hatred of class and privilege. Peter’s question, however, has made me reflect, and the following should be read more as a meditation on Genet and The Maids.
The Maids is possibly the most well-known and most performed of Genet’s plays. It is complementary to a great deal of post-WW 2 and early Cold War drama in theatre and film of the time, in that it involves secrets and the gradual and eventful unraveling of those secrets. Subsequently, it shares certain themes with such works as Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire, which was also first performed in 1947.
One reason for The Maids exalted position as a major work of the 20th. Century is primarily due to it having three wonderful female roles, amongst the best of world theatre. Many great actresses have performed the roles of the maids, Solange and Clair, and their Madame. This includes Glenda Jackson, Susannah York, Vivien Merchant, and recently Cate Blanchett, Isabelle Hubert and Elizabeth Debiki.
Genet’s world is more transcendent and elusive than simplistic emotions. Even if they are full of ‘sound and fury’ they are not ‘nothing’. They tap into the continual bafflement of the individual – caught in between order and chaos, between truth and illusion; between the mask and reality.
What makes Genet rather shocking and provocative is that the illusion is often preferable to the reality with seeming tragic consequences. However, the tragedy is not necessarily how the respective protagonists see it – they tend to see their subsequent demise as a release, a freedom from oppression and a way of remaining true to themselves. Maybe the fact that Genet doesn’t allow for sentimentality and ‘niceness’ is a reason for his current relatively neglected position in modern Australia? Genet is not ‘nice’, he is most certainly not ‘P.C’, and the portrayal of women in The Maids is not particularly flattering; powerful but not ‘nice’. What perhaps needs to be questioned is why there is a sense of dissatisfaction when one is denied ‘niceness’ in preference for bafflement. Order versus chaos, and in Genet’s world it is chaos that wins time and again – as it does in life.
Subsequently, as I muse, is The Maids an ‘absurdist’ piece? The French certainly don’t think so. Most despise the term ‘absurdist’, which was first used to describe such works by the English critic Martin Esslin. The French don’t tend to use this term, but rather see such works as The Maids as deeply reflective of real life. Sartre’s ‘Hell is other people’ isn’t ‘absurd’, it is very real. So too is the eternal battle between servants and masters, or in The Maids case, mistresses. Shakespeare encapsulates the essence of this battle in Julius Caesar when he has Cassius say, ‘The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, / But in ourselves, that we are underlings’ (JC:1.2).
In Genet’s The Maids, it is the Madam’s maids, Solange and Claire who are the ‘underlings’. They represent any person, male and female, who have felt the whip of oppression based on privilege, wealth and class; in fact any form of discrimination. They truly hate the ‘Madame’. Whilst the reason for this hatred is not always clear, nonetheless, it is very real; and if we were truly honest with ourselves we would allow ourselves to empathize with this hatred, as virtually all of us have felt the whip of the boss man or woman and have hated the person simply because we are ‘underlings’, and felt powerless to do anything about it. For example: we rant and rail full of ‘sound and fury’ about Donald Trump, or any other perceived political authoritarian, but all this ‘sound and fury’ actually amounts to nothing but a sense of frustration and a denial of our own significance, influence, and worth. We are powerless; we remain ‘underlings’ with only our hatred and resentment to keep us company (along with other malcontents on FaceBook). However, anger and hatred, as Plato observed, gives us pleasure. So that is partly the cathartic challenge of The Maids – will you, as an audience member, allow yourself to hate? And no – it’s not ‘nice’; but it is human, honest and very real, and not in the least bit ‘absurd’.
Reading through the respective publishing and performance history of Genet’s work it is a relative minefield of explosive condemnation and awe. Whilst I am quietly confident in my production, nonetheless, I am expecting a hammerhead reaction – polarized opinions, bafflement, and that dreadful summation ‘well, that was interesting’. Furthermore, Genet seems to attract the type of criticism that reeks of odious comparisons and how it should be done (like Pinter, Brecht, Wilde, and others), rather than how it could be done. Ah, well – such is the current zeitgeist. All I can offer in defense to my valiant cast and crew is as long as we think we have done the best we possibly can then it really doesn’t matter what others think.
So – why did I agree to direct Genet’s The Maids? To answer this I had to reflect on my relationship with Genet. This began with Lindsay Kemp’s extraordinary production Flowers (1974), based on Genet’s Our Lady of the Flowers, which I saw as a teenager in Sydney.
Not only did it assist in reconciling and articulating my own blooming homosexuality, it also transported me into the magical but dark side of illicit desire, and the heart of existentialism. I then attempted to read Our Lady of the Flowers and A Thief’s Journal, which I found a bit of a struggle, but finally started to get it with Querelle at Brest. This was complemented by reading Joyce’s Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man, Camus’ The Stranger and seeing productions of Deathwatch, The Maids, as well as Sartre’s In Camera, Beckett’s Waiting for Godot, Tennessee Williams’ Camino Real, and Ionesco’s Rhinoceros – with the addition of The Rocky Horror Show, Yukio Mishima’s Confession of a Mask, and Tom of Finland.
Yes – this was a discovery of homosexuality in a particular theatrical manner. The point is, however, I had no idea what ‘existentialism’ or ‘absurdist’ meant, not from an academic point of view. I hadn’t read Martin Esslin, Derrida, Foucault, or even much Sartre and Camus. I came at these things not from academic labels but from experiencing them raw without preconceived ideas about what they were supposedly meant to be, albeit filtered through a theatrical gaze – and I am grateful for this innocence. I still tend to flinch and shy away from such labels; all I care about is how it feels and how it stimulates the imagination. However, as with a great deal of ‘gay’ literature – the mask is always present and very real, partly out of necessity, and partly out of desire.
The only other major Genet experience was Jim Sharman’s epic 4 hours NIDA production of The Screens. I was new to NIDA then and agreed to be the staff member to sit through all 10 performances. That’s 40 hours of my life I will never get back again. Jim’s production wasn’t bad – in fact it was rather spectacularly good – but it was baffling and exhausting; which is another challenging aspect of Genet’s work – it should be baffling and exhausting – as well as funny and ‘theatrical’. I think ‘theatrical’ is preferable to ‘absurdist’.
So – here I am forty years on from my initial contact with the world of Genet and finally entering and endeavouring to produce my own version of The Maids in collaboration with others. Why? Well, as previously mentioned, it does offer three terrific female roles. I was asked to direct this by a couple of Adelaide actresses with whom I had worked and thought were terrific. It was their idea and passion for the play that was the initial appeal. So my sense of responsibility and commitment to them is very high – and it has been a joy to rehearse with them this complex work, discovering new things at every rehearsal, which is always indicative of a great play and engaging process. For example; today’s rehearsal involved discussion about making final decisions about blocking and ‘locking’ the show into place. Whilst acknowledging that this is ultimately a necessary step I argued that I don’t really like to ‘lock down’ shows. Why? Because the theatre is a ‘live’ experience and this production will be slightly different for each performance. Subsequently, it can never be fully ‘locked down’; there will be a definite blueprint and safety net but it should be allowed to grow and change throughout the season. Some actors like this; others don’t – and that’s okay – but it is part of my aesthetic if you like.
Another reason for doing The Maids is rather selfish. This is recognized as one of the major plays of the 20th Century, and I have never before directed a play by Genet. So this has been a personal artistic challenge of myself. I have no idea really if this is going to work or not. There isn’t any certainty – not with a play like this – but nothing ventured nothing gained. As I have continually harangued respective acting students, you have to be artistically brave and make bold choices if you wish to be truly a theatre artist – the risk is all!
Furthermore, The Maids as well as the theatre venue in which it is to be performed, the intimate Bakehouse Theatre in Adelaide, complements my current aesthetic in regards to theatre. I wish to do plays and productions in venues that are focused primarily on the actor. Whilst I deeply acknowledge and appreciate the art of theatre design, I am more interested in the challenge of an ‘empty space’ and allowing the actors and the playwrights words envelope and engage the audiences imagination, thoughts and feelings.
It is the relative simplicity that is the challenge rather than the theatrical ‘smoke and mirrors’. They have their place, of course, and rightly so, but it is not necessarily where I am focused at the moment. Whilst I can admire and respect a fabulous artistic design and concept I am not moved by it. This is a debatable point, of course, and I have certainly experienced a number of ‘wow factors’ in regard to theatre design, but they are only momentary. Only the actor and the playwright are capable of moving and changing an audience.
I crave the simplicity and challenge of an ‘empty space’; and for me, the actor is the heart of the theatre – as it was in Shakespeare’s time, so it is for me.
TONY KNIGHT
George Selth Coppin (1819-1906) has been called “the father of Australian theatre” (Comedy Theatre, Melbourne, 1939). Whilst this may be disputed, nonetheless, George Coppin was one of the prime movers in establishing a professional theatre in Australia in the mid-colonial period. In many ways, he could be called 19th Century Australia’s ‘greatest showman’. As Sally O’Neill states, ‘Undoubtedly his enterprise was irrepressible; the business of entertainment suited his talents but, more important, he had an ingrained love of the theatre. He acted to make money but he found a stage in many other spheres.’ (Australian Dictionary of Biography).
methods of advertising shows, and bringing international artists to Australia, Coppin also helped to establish copyright legislation for playwrights in Australia and was one of the first to advocate for a ‘school of acting to develop Australian acting’ (Australian Dictionary of Biography). 
‘for attempting to tread on the cabbage tree’. When this came before the authorities Davis changed his story, stating that he would have kicked them ‘if they were not women’. This incident was reported in the Sydney Monitor (1 January 1841) and was also dramatized for the Sydney stage by Henry Charles O’Flaherty, in a number of sketches – Thespis in Austalia: or The Stage in Danger – in which O’Flaherty appeared as ‘Knight of the Fiddle, and Champion of the fair Eliza’, stroking ‘the place where his beard should be’ and claiming that he received a black-eye in the incident. This was followed by a poem The Battle of the Cabbage Tree, which was a satiric parody of Byron’s Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage. It is possible that these dramatic pieces were part of O’Flaherty’s wooing of Eliza Winstanley as they were married the following month on 6 February 1841. (Australian Plays for the Colonies 1834-1899. Ed. Richard Fotheringham. University of Queensland Press. 2006. 49-50).
Lieutenant Watkin Tench (1753-1833) was a Marine officer with the ‘First Fleet’ and provided one of the few eye-witness accounts of this production of The Recruiting Officer. Tench wrote, ‘That every opportunity of escape from the dreariness and dejection of our situation should be eagerly embraced will not be wondered at’ (Trench – A Complete Account of the Settlement at Port Jackson in New South Wales (1793). 25. Tench’s comment reflects the genuine concern and fragile position that faced the ‘First Fleeters’ in establishing the colony. There were only copies of two English plays that accompanied the First Fleet – George Farquhar’s popular satiric comedy The Recruiting Officer (1706) and the sentimental The Tragedy of Jane Shore (1714) by Poet Laureate Nicholas Rowe (1674-1718). Considering the difficulties, the ‘dreariness and dejection’ felt by Tench and one can assume by many others, Governor Arthur Phillip wisely chose Farquhar’s comedy to honour King George III’s birthday.
It is a ‘war play’ dealing with the character of Philoctetes and the ownership of a master weapon – Heracles’ Bow and Arrows – that is needed to end the Trojan War. At the time when Sophocles wrote Philoctetes and it was first performed Athens was entering the final years of the decades long and exhausting Peloponnesian War (431-404 BCE). Whilst achieving a number of military successes and the suppression of a couple of rebellions, nonetheless, Athens and the so-called Athenian League were also facing considerable international problems and defeats, particularly by the Persians as well as the ever increasing power of Carthage and the Carthaginians. Philoctetes may be considered a ‘war play’ but it is also a moral and ethical drama involving ‘keeping the peace’. Furthermore, it shows how in times of war a problematic person of value may be discarded and abandoned for the sake of personal ambition in the guise of action for the ‘greater good’. This hypocritical lie and deceit is exposed and denounced – but only after a long period of time, which is a lesson in itself – and only by someone who has the ethical and moral courage to stand up to the force of the majority.
are a couple of these plays that hold a significant place in Australian theatre history. 
This includes Euripides’ Medea (431 BCE) and Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex (429 BCE). Medea was a big international success for Australian actors Dame Judith Anderson and Zoe Caldwell; Oedipus Rex was directed by Tyrone Guthrie for Sydney’s Old Tote Theatre Company in the 1960s and was a landmark production not only for Guthrie, but also for the fledgling Old Tote Theatre Company.
This article on Thomas Otway’s Venice Preserv’d is a continuation of the series devoted to ‘neglected’ plays.
I first was introduced to Venice Preserv’d whilst a young directing student at The Drama Centre, London. I was assigned the play by Christopher Fettes to work with a student designer from the Motley Design Course, under the auspices and guidance of Glen Byam Shaw (1904-1986) and Margaret (‘Percy’) Harris (1904-2000) no less. Amazing when I think back on it. Furthermore, it was through working on Venice Preserv’d with the students and teachers at the Motley Design Course that I discovered the work of Edward Gordon Craig who had done numerous stage design concepts for the play. Looking at more modern stage designs for Venice Preserv’d it is interesting noticing Craig’s great influence.
Set in Venice in the late 17th Century Venice Preserv’d is a play about love, death, friendship and betrayal. It is a highly political play involving intrigue, rebellion, corruption and deceit, encapsulated by its subtitle – Venice Preserv’d, or A Plot Discovered. Whilst possible inspired by the Gunpowder Plot in 1605, nonetheless, at the time it was first produced in 1685 it was seen as an attack on the despised royalist government of the recently deceased Anthony Ashley Cooper, 1st Earl of Shaftesbury (1621-83). The elderly, scurrilous and decadent Venetian Senator, Antonio, was regarded as a satiric portrait of Shaftesbury. Antonio’s scenes with the courtesan Aquiliana, with his constant referring to his ‘Nicky-Nacky’, whilst hilariously funny also caused controversy, especially considering that ‘Nicky Nacky’ was contemporary slang for a woman’s genitalia. Furthermore, a century later, in 1795, performances of Venice Preserv’d at Richard Brinsely Sheridan‘s Drury Lane Theatre, featuring John Philip Kemble and Sarah Siddons, were involved in notorious ‘theatre riots’ and other disturbances in the wake of the American War of Independence and the French Revolution. The play was seen as ‘disgraceful to public morals, and so inimical to order and government’. The play continued to provoke strong reactions – an American production was banned in 1798, and there were further public demonstrations when the play was revived in 1809 and again in 1848, the year of numerous riots and rebellions throughout Europe.
For centuries Venice Preserv’d held equal status with the most popular and esteemed plays by Shakespeare. Unfortunately, Thomas Otway (1652-85) did not benefit from the success of his play, nor of his other success The Orphan (1680). Otway fell in love with Elizabeth Barry (1658-1713), for whom he wrote most of his main female characters, 
including Belvidera. Mrs Barry, however, did not return his love, preferring the advantageous attention of John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester (1647-80). Tragically, Thomas Otway died in abject poverty. There is an apocryphal story about his death first noted by the actor Theophilus Cibber (son of Colley Cibber) in his Lives of the Poets. The destitute and starving Otway was begging near Tower Hill. When he received a guinea from a passing stranger he rushed to the nearest baker, and due to his haste in eating choked on his first bite and died.
In the 18th Century the play was so popular that audience members knew respective speeches by heart, just like today some of Shakespeare’s most famous speeches are known (e.g. ‘To be or not to be”). James Quin (1693-1766), David Garrick (1717-79) and later John Philip Kemble (1757-1823) respectively played Jaffier for many years. Susanna Maria Cibber (1714-76) and Sarah Siddons (1755-1823) scored big hits playing Belvidera. In many ways Sarah Siddons‘ Belvidera became the centre of the play and a major reason for its continued popularity. 
Sarah Siddon’s Belvidera took on full responsibility for the fates of Jaffier and Pierre. How Sarah Siddon’s performed the final scene in which Belvidera goes mad and dies was recorded in 1808 – ‘her ravings, wild, terrible, desperate, were rendered more awful and impressive by the strong exertions in which her mind struggled from time to time to recover its balance and the evanescent glimpse of reason which glimmered doubtfully through the darkness of the soul’. When Sarah Siddon’s Belvidera died, ‘the terrible agonies of her death closed a representation of suffering nature almost too real and too dreadful to be borne’.
In the 19th Century Eliza O’Neill (1791-1872) and Fanny Kemble (1809-1893) respectively scored considerable success as Belvidera. Audiences rose to their feet and cheered Eliza O’Neill’s Belvidera’s death scene. Fanny Kemble wrote that she that she was so overwhelmed by Belvidera that she had to be stopped from rushing screaming from the theatre (bit O.T.T. maybe). Edmund Kean (1787-1833) and Sir Henry Irving (1838-1905) were also notable Jaffier’s in respective productions of Venice Preserv’d.
MARY ELIZABETH BRADDON (1835-1915) was a popular Victorian novelist, her most acclaimed and successful work being the ‘sensation novel’ Lady Audley’s Secret (1862). Initially published in serial form, the novel proved so popular that it was almost immediately adapted for the stage. There were a number of adaption, however, the most lasting and performed one was by the comedian Colin Henry Hazelwood (1823-1875); an irony in itself.
There are a number of fascinating things about Lady Audley’s Secret, not least its theatrical history and influence but also a rather fine connection to Australian history. Mary Elizabeth Braddon’s elder brother, Edward Braddon (1829-1904), immigrated to Australia in 1845 and eventually became Premier of Tasmania from 1894-99, and was a Member of the First Australian Parliament. The suburb of Brandon in the Australian Capital Territory, and the Tasmanian electorate of Braddon are named after Sir Edward Braddon. However, our story lays with his sister and the ‘sensation’ of Lady Audley’s Secret.
This is highly apparent in Disney’s Maleficent (2014) in which the classic evil witch, although wonderfully played by Angelina Jollie, is given a relatively predictable ‘back story’ that makes her subsequent actions ‘understandable’ due to be the victim of male domination. This romanticised reduction concerns me a little, as it does with male villains, such as the vampire, as it seems to suggest that real evil, real evil people, male and female, don’t really exists, and that everyone and all evil actions are relatively ‘understandable’ – they are actually ‘nice’ people underneath all this. Rubbish. Real evil, real evil people, male and female, do exits, and their actions rather than being ‘understandable’ are repugnant, destructive, and – well – evil – and should be denounced. The potential danger of hypocrisy, and the gullibility of accepting ‘wolves in sheep clothing’ is remarkably pronounced; not all people are ‘understandable’ or ‘nice’.
However, the above characters cited above are not really those that sit within the genre of sensation drama. As previously stated, and in reference to Lady Audley, sensation drama and the femme fatale really exists within a relatively domestic setting and not in the world of fantasy. This makes the modern femme fatale figure particularly dangerous. I am, however, hard put to find modern examples; although arguably Robin Wright’s Claire Underwood in the US TV series House of Cards (2013-2017) falls into the femme fatale archetype. As does Nurse Ratched in Dale Wasserman’s continuing popular play adaptation of Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1963). Furthermore, whilst Shakespeare’s Lady Macbeth may remain the most ever-present femme fatale I doubt very much if we will ever see again Ann Downs in Leonard Kastle’s The Shrike, or Lady Audley in Lady Audley’s Secret. Nonetheless, you can always read and see these works, and the femme fatale remains, in various forms, a vital archetype in modern and classical drama – long may she reign.