By every measure — star power, buzz, lofty ticket prices — “The Maids” is the most hyped event of this year’s Lincoln Center Festival, if not the entire summer. And so it’s nice to report that this production delivers, thanks to two gung-ho, highly physical performances by Cate Blanchett and Isabelle Huppert that keep the hysteria meter in the red for nearly two uninterrupted hours.
Blanchett and Huppert are sisters Claire and Solange, respectively, the title servants of Jean Genet’s 1947 perverse classic. But this is not “The Help,” and these maids’ sexualized, homicidal fantasies toward their boss — inspired by a true crime — bubble over into real life.
In the absence of Mistress (the towering Elizabeth Debicki), Claire and Solange indulge in wicked role-playing, conducting a “ceremony” that savagely parodies their subservient situation and ends in death.
How ironic that a top ticket price of $375 could buy such violent class rage.
Director Benedict Andrews has moved the action to a glamorous present, and makes prominent use of a live video feed.
To the strains of the Velvet Underground’s “I’ll Be Your Mirror,” close-ups and overhead shots of the characters are projected on a large screen. Against Alice Babidge’s stylish set — all mirrors and expensive white furniture — Claire, Solange and Mistress are the stars of their own Hitchcockian, fetishistic thriller.
This is a very effective conceit, even if it’ll impress only those who haven’t set foot at BAM in the past 10 years.
What’s more debatable is the choice to amp everything up to 11.
This new translation, by the director and Andrew Upton (Blanchett’s husband and the head of the Sydney Theatre Company, where the production originated), revels in profanity. Where the original text used “slut,” they opted for “c - - t,” and F-bombs fly with abandon.
“Murder is hilarious,” Claire screams hysterically. “F - - king hilarious!”
The show also largely ignores Genet’s stage directions that the sisters behave “stealthily” and Mistress avoid caricature.
Instead, Blanchett and Huppert go all out, tussling and wrestling, roughhousing, striking outré poses and spritzing their crotches with perfume.
As for Debicki, her Mistress is a grotesque 1 percenter, lording it over her resentful employees. “You’re so lucky,” she tells them.
“Nothing to lose. That’s the Lord’s blessing for the poor.”
And yet the show’s belief that too much is never enough casts a crazy spell. Blanchett is on fire, pouring her all into Claire’s hatred and humiliation — at one point, Huppert pushes her head in a toilet. It’s a performance for the ages.
The sisterly balance is a bit out of kilter because Huppert, hampered by not acting in her native language, isn’t as fluid. Her accent does add a twisted layer, turning her into the archetypal coquettish French maid.
Still, the two stars understand that Solange and Claire are playing for keeps, and their performances match that desperation. Watching them go at it with uninhibited recklessness gives a fantastic charge.