The Maids

Kip Williams, fresh off his West End success with Dorian Gray starring Sarah Snook, is back with a new technological hurricane. This three-hander adaptation of Jean Genet’s The Maids is a brash and truly relentless spectacle. He replaces the original’s quiet eroticism with constant turbulence: live smartphone footage projected onto the set. It is dizzying and chaotic and perhaps could do with a little tidying up (!) - but overall, I really enjoyed it.

The play finds its modern hook in online celebrity culture. Williams digitally augments his actors, turning their faces into smooth, botoxed, slightly alien avatars using Snapchat filters. The sisters’ dangerous role-play rebellion against “Madame” slips directly into this curated, augmented reality.

Lydia Wilson and Phia Saban, as the two maids, deliver ridiculously high-energy performances, moving from diva posturing to cringe-inducing subservience. The music is an eclectic shock, ranging from Bach to acid - house. Yerin Ha’s Madame, unfortunately, enters as a comical, puerile tyrant in leather shorts, a caricature of a narcissist that lessens the sense of genuine terror or enslavement somewhat.

But the show is driven by sheer speed. The pumping music and unstable, handheld Snapchat footage give the action a necessary hallucinatory dread. While the velocity prevents a deep exploration of the sisters’ psychological dynamic, the overall effect is powerful. A superb theatrical stunt, deserving of recognition for its sheer technical ambition and its committed leading performances - but not sure it will clean up at the Oliver Awards.

I had no idea what awaited me when I sat down to watch The Maids on its third night at the Donmar. All I knew was Kip Williams, dark fantasy role play. The average age of an early week Donmar attendee tends not to be that young, I am pleased to say that, on this occasion, the mean age was younger than I am used to. Kip Williams has brought this 1947 play by Jean Genet into 2025 with bravado and gusto. Screens are at the centre of the production and the liberal use of filters lends itself to the phantasmagoric nature of the production as well as bringing an element of body horror. My companion and I were laughing out loud and 1hr40 sans interval breezed by in a maelstrom of chaos that was somehow simultaneously absurd and believable.