June 5, 2012
Reviewed by Ezzat Goushegir
Last year I attended a reading of
Hilda, a powerful play by Marie Nduaye the French playwright. In this
complex play which manifests human cruelty, exploitation, domination and
class control, the rich, dominant, yet lonely Madame Lemarchand finds a
maid named Hilda whom she expects would satisfy her complicated need
for an infinite power. She not only alienates Hilda from her own
identity, but gradually estranges her from her husband Frank--also a
worker--and two children. Madame Lemarchand creepily acts like a
corporate boss, transforms Hilda as her possession and tortuously
imposes her husband to pay her when Hilda visits her family. The
consequence of this process is Hilda's and her family's brutal
destruction.
Marie Nduaye skillfully takes us to a familiar world to scrutinize the menacing process of domestic imperialism. Hilda is indeed a modern adaptation of The Maids by Jean Genet. Basically a different take on the real incident happened in France in 1933 as the result of the exploitation of the workers. In this version, if we see it from a larger spectrum, although the maid is absent, she is symbolically present. It's the intelligent audience who would see Hilda as a silent nation, yet pregnant with rage.
Seeing the play at Alliance Francaise de Chicago, as the second reading of The International Voices Project was an extraordinary experience.
Marie Nduaye skillfully takes us to a familiar world to scrutinize the menacing process of domestic imperialism. Hilda is indeed a modern adaptation of The Maids by Jean Genet. Basically a different take on the real incident happened in France in 1933 as the result of the exploitation of the workers. In this version, if we see it from a larger spectrum, although the maid is absent, she is symbolically present. It's the intelligent audience who would see Hilda as a silent nation, yet pregnant with rage.
Seeing the play at Alliance Francaise de Chicago, as the second reading of The International Voices Project was an extraordinary experience.
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