When slaves love one another, it's not love.
It's not in the stage directions that the maids Solange and Claire are to be played by men. Jean-Paul Sarte writes all about Jean Genet's dramatic instruction in the forward. If I had known that then I doubt I would have thought about it it anyway. I don't really care about the idea that the artifice of theater would push the playing a role to kabuki glamour meets waking up to the haggard demon you were lustily embracing moments before. Or something grandiose about truth and false. Genet doesn't want me to forget it's a mirage turned to sand in the mouth. But I keep coming back to the guy because it's how to make another world to live in while you have to be in this one. I know it's fake and I believe in the wish to be real. When I make wishes in fountains it is always the same to be happy. Part of me feels that'll never come true because I admitted it now. I am attracted to that want and spite of Jean Genet. The suicide of all you ever had, and it wasn't enough anyway. To hell with what the director wants.
Danger is my halo, Claire; and you, you dwell in darkness....
The maids lie through their teeth, they lie in their made and made unmade beds, lying in that kind of wet dream that's cut off its penis to spite its face when allowed for too long. The wet spot of drool shoulders a crying fit of headache. They admit more than once that they take too long with the preliminaries. They don't want to have nothing to cry about. I could see their insides with an emptiness for no other dream to fill. The show is Claire is their mistress who just might backhand love them. Solange chooses the role of her sister, another maid. She can see the real Claire grovel and rabies like a dog. I had the feeling that Claire saw Solange in the beast as much as she saw herself. There's no pity. Claire is the younger sister. A fellow inmate of don'ts and dont's, her best position in life is if someone saw them and remarked it was a pity the younger one couldn't.... If a milkman were around he'd mean it when he hit her up. Somewhere a catty divorcee is probably putting her friend down that though they are both single, at least she'd been married once. If you've ever suspected another girl of enjoying feeling attractive standing next to your dull self? I thought it was like that with them. It isn't enough to have more of a chance that comes to nothing (the rest of the world that must look like it has more is still there to rub the salt in). Their Madame wouldn't be the star on Claire's stage if it had been. When all they had was each other, when they are unabridged by Claire's sinking slower than Solange's head already underground? I was impressed by this clouding any life they suffocated together. Solange had the head start by getting used the shit of life first. I personally feel sorrier for Solange that her world must have accepted it for her before they'd accept it for Claire by virtue of this. It's just plain shitty, really. But then it's also true that knowing the "rules" (or what my mom liked to call "life's tough all over") must've been a hard knock to take. If Solange had all the answers and it was the type that wasn't worth having a job or looking for a job. A dirty slum or another's home to hollow out for smoke. There's no truth to be had here. There is the truth of when you find out that something you thought was forgiven (if you wanted to think it, or someone led you to believe it) is back from the dead. Or something you had experienced to be different than the skeleton in the closet dancing to accusations. That kind of thing. The ugly cry and from the belly of self serving pity and justification. Who cares if it is true or not because the ground beneath you is some place else. The sisters have a bottomless pit of fire to cast their bitchy spells against one another. The Madame doesn't get the chance to have her real say upon them for sending her figment to prison. He returns somewhere, she must go somewhere with him. It becomes true when Claire feeds herself (or Solange feeds her. I would cry knowing the trial will tell only one into the wasted) the poison they always fail to climax their (revenge? blood and glory? It's my pity party and I'll kill if I want to) act on. Big bad gesticulations and sheep's shouting. Watch yourself in the front row. Solange will have to have tears for herself one of these days, when they come for her. When she goes to prison she could touch herself on the sacrificial bed she's made and I just know she'll never get the truth. It wasn't a good play they played. I know I'll never see this dramatized.... But if I did, I hope the players get it right in how they reveal their cards. That's the best thing about The Maids. That fucked up way people come up with shit to be true and they don't even want it to be any other way. I don't know how or why it got to be something that looked so good to them inside. It's so ugly how Solange wants Claire to be hated and petted by their mistress. She can't be herself unless it is an epithet. How they drag it to bed that the other secretly hates them. I'm sorrier that they had been doing this for such a long time. When you have that kind of will that's the only line there is. Make that attracted and repulsed. To have the tools and make it a tombstone....