The Maids Archives - TheaterScene.net

The Maids

Leisure, Labor, Lust

April 2, 2018

Besides depicting the upper crust, the lives of the servants are harshly detailed with inspiration from social documentarian Jacob Riis’ muckraking journalism. There are searing descriptions of the bleak existence in the Lower East Side tenements that include death from cholera. Ms. Farrington ingeniously grafts the characteristics of Wharton and Riis with her own imaginative powers in her finely written and bold scenario that is set in 1907 and is structured in three acts. [more]

The Maids

October 18, 2016

Obie award-winning playwright José Rivera is an Oscar nominee for his adapted screenplay for "The Motorcycle Diaries." For this adaptation, he has set "The Maids" (which premiered in Paris in 1947) in Vieques Island in Puerto Rico in 1941. This was a politically tumultuous era with native factions resisting the U.S. presence there. Mr. Rivera’s script reflects this situation and locale and is filled with cultural references to sugar cane, bustellos and revolutionaries. [more]