THE MAIDS
Ulaan Baator, Mongolia 1995
Audiences laughed at the maids’ attempts to murder their mistress.

Proud infamy is something the descendants of Chinggis Khan understand. The cruel humor of the play also appealed. Mongolia was a cultural colony of Russia -- an Asian Cuba. The Russians taught Western drama and the Mongolians continue to enjoy it now that Russia is gone. In 1995 there were 11 theaters in the capital city, Ulaan Baator. The Maids translated in Mongolian from a Russian version of Jean Genet’s French was performed at the Ulan Baator Youth Theater.

Women played all three roles. Sartre’s misleading essay in the Grove Press edition of the play insists men perform the play. Genet never said men should play the Maids. Anyway, men playing women in Monglia is old hat. Genet’s stage direction describes the maids as older than Madame. Imitating Madame is their fantasy, an illusion that reveals what they are not. An Asian woman wearing a blonde wig had the same resonance in Ulaan Baator.

The opening night audience was the usual mixture of a Mongolian theater crowd: grannies in lurid combinations of turquoise silk robes and tangerine sashes, policemen in black leather jackets and jackboots like storm troopers, Buddhist monks in saffron robes, businessmen in stylish suits, stylish ladies in cashmere sweater dresses , children in Gap clothes, from the local Ulaan Baator Gap Store. They laughed a lot.

The connections between Genet’s ideas and Mongolian culture are many. As always, the play revealed more than itself. At technical rehearsals the boys operating the lights imitated the opening scene: Sartre would’ve been pleased.

In the photograph below the maids wait for their over-friendly mistress to drink a poisoned cup of tea. "It's such a pleasure making people happy," Madame croons.