FEELIN' GOOD - NINA SIMONE

THE MAIDS
BY JEAN GENET / DRAMA

STARRING LA CHIQUITTA & FABIOLA

OPENS NOV 6 AT MCAULEY THEATRE,
HK ARTS CENTRE

POSTER DESIGN BY JULY MALANTIC

HYPERACTIVE (R) MAPS OUT A MARKETING PLAN
WITH THE MAIDS' PRODUCTION MANAGER,
ENAN LIM.

I trekked to My Musical Studio on Saturday night for The Maids' first reading and production meeting. I was a bit apprehensive, but mostly, I was excited. Apart from my frequent outings as an MC and the odd appearance onstage, I haven't really been in involved in theatre work in a significant way.

I arrived at 5.30pm on the dot. My best friend, Rye, was ceremoniously pouring white wine for everyone. "Everyone," really was juts a handful of people: Rye (Solange), myself (Claire), Moe (Madame), Enan (Production Manager), Alvin (Director), and Tina (Co-director, Dramaturg).

We jumped into the material immediately - no preamble. I guess the best way to tackle any Genet piece is not really to approach it, but to attack it.

And that's exactly what we did.

The last time I touched The Maids was in 2002, for my senior directing thesis. I re-imagined the final sequence - a gruesome but nebulous act of sacrifice - as something that might have happened within the tight, echo-bound walls of a bath room. I got an A+, but I'll never forget the countless sleepless nights I endured, trying to make sense of the ending. 

Rye and I have been talking about performing The Maids as our alter egos, La Chiquitta and Fabiola, for years. Rye had always been more emotionally infatuated with the project than I ever was. The Maids is the kind of dangerous material that grips you by the balls and never lets go until it gets out of you a release that is neither satisfying nor predictable...

So this time around, I vowed not to over think it. I'll take the material as it comes, I told myself, one day at a time, and try to not to be wholly consumed by it.

...who was I kidding?

By the third line, I had become Claire - impetuous, impatient and impressionable -an accomplice to terrible acts that nobody will ever completely understand.

It felt so good.
 

// IT'S A NEW LIFE FOR ME

AND I'M FEELIN' GOOD... //