TO bring together two actors of such greatness is wonderful but to bring them together in such a play as this is brilliant. Genet's unsettling 1947 existentialist drama about two maids, Claire (Cate Blanchett) and Solange (Isabelle Huppert), who play out their fantasies of abjection and domination, is full of layers.

In their little acted-out "ceremony", Claire plays Madame and Solange plays Claire (at least this time) but the theatrical levels are always shifting, flickering back and forth between different realities that are, in the end, all performances, like the theatre and like our lives.

And there is the fact that we are watching Blanchett and Huppert in magnificent, tour-de-force performances. They are celebrities as well as great actors and this layer - just watching them strut their stuff - becomes part of the fabric of the production. Add Elizabeth Debicki (who played Jordan Baker in the recent film The Great Gatsby) as an almost offensively young, beautiful, stupid and cruel Madame and we see Genet's squalid drama of dreams and play-acting lifted into a different realm.

Add also Alice Babidge's set: coolly glass-walled with reflected lights and mirrored reflections of the action, and festooned with such an excess of flowers that it looks like a star's dressing room. There is an impossibly long rack of furs and dresses at the back: for Madame her clothes, for the maids their costumes.

Sean Bacon has designed and operates a live video feed, screened hugely above the stage, that peers into the actors' faces and movements from outside the walls, like paparazzi snaps but more luminous and revealing. The music by Oren Ambarchi is like the score of a movie, by turns heightening and lowering the mood in a frankly manipulative way.

It is impossible to know what is real here, not even the intimations of sex and murder that underpin the oppressive world of class struggle that Genet evokes, and his celebration of the defeat of the glamorous by the sordid, a defeat aesthetic rather than political.

But Benedict Andrews's fine direction guides us beautifully through it. The turning points are all clear and revelatory and then instantly undercut, within scenes, within lines, within words.

Blanchett's and Huppert's performances are master-classes in ringing all these changes. Huppert has a stunningly performed long speech in the penultimate scene in which she rehearses the triumph of the abject as a kind of timid victory dance.

Blanchett's near-hysterical performances as Claire/Madame are brilliant, comically aping Madame's style and mannerisms, and in their febrile intensity only serving to emphasise the underlying pain.

By the end of this production, of a play that can be alienating for those who yearn for simple human reassurance, the defeated maids' ironic victory becomes quite radiant.

Tickets: $50-$105. Bookings: (02) 9250 1777. Until July 20.

LA Times

Cate Blanchett, Isabelle Huppert debut in 'The Maids' in Australia

guardian.co.uk
By: Ben Neutze

How relevant is a 1947 French play about domestic servitude to a 2013 Australian audience? Jean Genet's masterpiece about Claire and Solange, two maids damaged from a lifetime of being pushed "below" remains avant-garde, bizarre and perhaps a little bit shocking; featuring the kind of light depravity and liberal use of "cunt" that modern theatregoers have come to expect.

But most of what makes Genet's work so brilliant springs from a kind of relationship that is completely unfamiliar to most members of a modern audience – the maids' lives, which prompt their sadistic games, are completely dominated by their employer. That was the almost insurmountable challenge facing Benedict Andrews and Andrew Upton in translating and adapting this unlikely classic, but in their hands, it slips into present day almost seamlessly.

This production demonstrates exactly why director Benedict Andrews is such a divisive figure in the theatrical world. But treading the fine line between maverick and madman, Andrews manages to fall the right side more often than most.

Several of his trademarks make appearances, including real-time video projections and a glass box set. Surprisingly, it's not these theatrical statements that make the most impact; it's the smaller moments and the subtly playful choices that make this a thrilling reading of a classic.

Andrews has found a way of making the mistress-maid relationship resonant and the psychological damage the mistress inflicts on the maids palpable. As the Mistress, Elizabeth Debicki is a flouncing yet imposing presence. With the smallest of movements or the most seemingly inconsequential choices of phrase, she denigrates Claire and Solange, keeping them underfoot as her playthings.

Andrews' longtime collaborator Cate Blanchett is in stunning form as Claire, picking up every nuance and flying through her character's more difficult turns with skill and grace. Isabelle Huppert delivers a strong, textured and playful performance, but doesn't bring the same kind of refinement and depth as Blanchett. Her diction is mostly clear, but as the play is so language-based, she struggles to keep up with Blanchett who conveys the intention and subtext of every single word in the script.

With only three actors onstage, it's an intimate play, even if the performances are big. Sydney Theatre might not seem like the ideal venue, but Alice Babidge's sleek and stylish set goes a long way to focusing the action inward. Her costumes are just as dazzling.

The actors are filmed and broadcast live in close up on a large screen at the back of the stage, which not only speaks to the maids' suspicions that they're being watched, but amplifies the more intimate moments. Of course all three have faces the camera loves, so the effect is often mesmerising. Unfortunately, like sitting at the back of a rock arena, you often end up watching the screen when you'd rather be watching the stage.

There are problems too, with the stars onstage who aren't always perfectly aligned. Blanchett and Huppert simply don't seem like sisters, perhaps because their mannerisms, voices, looks and reactions are miles apart. But there's enough star power and theatrical voltage onstage to rival Vivid Festival, which threatened to spoil opening night when traffic woes delayed the start time.

There's evidence of brilliance in every moment of this intriguing production. It's a rich theatrical experience, if not fully realised.

Tim Winton's 'The Turning'



The trailer for Tim Winton's best-selling novel 'The Turning' has been released ahead of its World Premiere at the Melbourne International Film Festival.  The much-anticipated film adaptation features some of Australia's top talent including Cate Blanchett, Rose Byrne and Hugo Weaving.  The film is a collaborative effort that consists of 17 chapters, which each features a different director and stellar cast.  "We came upon this idea of extending a personal invitation to seventeen great creative minds to interpret one chapter each and asking them if any of the stories particularly spoke to them, affected or resonated with them,” Producer Robert Connolly said.  The film will release as a unique cinematic event across Australia later this year.