Eve Miller
This quicksand, quicksilver, deadly game of a production begins with the maids toying with one another, and the audience. They power-trip, flirt, and rehearse their roles, calling into question gender, status, and morality in the process.
A modern adaptation of Jean Genet’s The Maids, The Domestiques follows Clay and Lonnie as they plot to kill the Southern senator’s wife that employs them. They role-play the murder, delighting in sadomasochistically eroticising their scheming and alternating between squabbling and comforting one another. When Madam comes home, their scheme falls apart as Lonnie is drawn into the Madam’s spidersweb of wealth, and Clay is still determined to free them both from the system of wealth inequality and normative society by killing Madam. Once Madam leaves once more, the game twists again, and the maids are forced to reckon with their internal power dynamics and own moral limits.
The actors change roles and identities mellifluously, and just as you think you’ve gotten a grasp on what is happening before your eyes, they’ve changed again. All three of the actors play their roles with relish and abandon, but particular mention must go to Aviana Glover and Kayla Dobbs, who play Clay and Lonnie, alternating the roles each night. They are both such open performers, who have the rare combination of extraordinary natural talent and extreme will and hard work behind them. The trust and chemistry between them as a duo is astounding, the likes of which I have never seen before, and both the actors and director Rory James Leech must be praised for their collective approach to the formidable themes and plot of the piece with sensitivity, curiosity, and risk.
Venus Cobb’s adaptation is shrewd, crude, and nimble. This is the kind of densely detailed and intricately written performance that you could watch over and over again and still uncover new insights. Dissertations could be written about this adaptation, and I hope they will be. Cobb subtly draws on the threads woven by Genet’s original, and pulls the beating heart of the original into the present, spotlighting current concerns of the gig economy, worsening political polarisation, and the greater acceptance of non-binary gender identities, even as some portions of society dig their claws into bigoted social norms.
Mind-blowing metatheatricality, tricksy rug-pulls, and gender-fuckery abound in this intelligent, erotic, and devastating examination of power, capitalism, and identity. This is not a show to miss.
Recommended Drink: Definitely not the wine.
Performances of The Domestiques have now concluded at EdFringe 2025.
Jake Mace
Lamesha Ruddock
Jasmine Silk
