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Saint Genet l’Africain is a modern interpretation of Genet’s drama with a peculiar twist – the story takes places not in Madam’s bedroom as in the original play, but in a prison. Moreover the maids, Claire and Solange, appear as male inmates inhabiting separate cells and watched over by a guard who is the Madam incarnate.

The opening evokes a scene from Alexander Dumas’ The Count of Monte Cristo: two prisoners break their solitary existence by communicating with each other through a common wall. They gently knock and listen for the sound.They also channel cigarette smoke through a small crack, using a metal straw. In contrast to the stone walls of Chateau d'If, the wall separating the cells of Claire and Solange is imaginary. Clearly the prisoners share mutual affection and intimacy, vague and volatile, like the smoke of a cigarette exhaled by one, and drawn up with erotic ecstasy by the other.

If the prison wall confines Claire and Solange to their solitary cells, their imagination sets them free. In their minds, they break through the barrier and engage in an elaborate ritualistic ceremony, or charade, using most unusual props: red rubber gloves, colorful hats, scarves and artificial flowers. What happens onstage isn’t just a masquerade with the maids changing costumes and alternating the roles of supremacy and compliance, but a well-rehearsed murder plan played and replayed. The audience becomes not just spectators of a play but witnesses to a crime.

Saint Genet l’Africain is a result of a true multicultural collaboration. The director, Yoshi Oida, brought to the production particular characteristics of Japanese mountain asceticism. Two dancer-choreographers—Koffi Kôkô (Claire) and Ismael Ivo (Solange)—natives of Benin and Brazil respectively—infuse the choreography with a blend of African rhythm and Brazilian extravaganza. The ‘orchestration’ of the piece – an explosive cacophony of percussive sounds–was composed and performed live and onstage by the Brazilian musician Joăo de Bruço. The atonality of this score, with some highly unusual sounds and growls, intensifies the chilling impact of the piece.
 

Kôkô and Ivo are performers of innate charisma and magnificent physique. In their gender-transforming roles as the maids, they danced with astonishing feminine grace and plasticity. Ziya Azazi, as the guard/Madam startled the audience with a series of high-energy acrobatics.

At times the production suffers a loss in momentum as if the choreographers decided to leave space in the script for viewers to take a breather. It’s an intense and challenging work not only for the performers but also the audience, as it is not easy to take it all in, nor to follow the act that unfolds and distinguish what is real and what is fantasy.

The creators of Saint Genet l’Africain interpret the story of Genet’s Maids in a most inventive and elaborate fashion, entwining numerous symbols and elements of the theater of the absurd with powerful and expressive choreography. This bracing innovation is what makes the work so intriguing and moving, and impossible to forget.