When it premiered in France in the 1950s, Jean Genet's The Maids must have been a shock. The play, based on the true story of two sisters who murdered their employer in the early 1930s, blends two kinds of provocation: it draws the audience into the violent, deranged fantasy world of the maids, and at the same time presents their madness as a product of class exploitation. Genet's original audience was being spooked and indicted at the same time.

In America, where the institution of having servants has never been as common as in France, the social criticism which drives the play has much less force. In the production that closed last weekend at the Adams Pool Theater, produced by Extension School drama students Les Welter and Barbara Matteau, the sisters' madness seemed disturbing, but the audience's immediate connection to it--the sense that this violence could exist inside one's own home, beneath the surface of bourgeois contentment--was lacking; people who have never had a servant can't really shudder when a maid cries "You'll see what a servant girl is--I'll strangle her!"

This difference in context leaves the play as simply a case study, dependent on Genet's flushed and often histrionic writing to convince us that what we see on stage is really what it feels like to be mad. From the beginning, Genet encloses us in the hermetic mental world shared by Solange (Lois Folstein) and Claire (Mary Rutkowski), the sisters who are employed in the house of an unnamed "Madame" (Barbara Matteau). The play opens with what seems to be a maid's insurrection against Madame, as Solange inexplicably drops her servile tone and begins to abuse her mistress. Their bizarre, frequently incomprehensible exchange, in which erotic and violent impulses are mingled, is broken off suddenly by the sound of an alarm clock--the real Madame is about to come home, and we learn that Claire has been wearing her clothes as part of a play-acting ritual.

This disorientation is the first of many the play has in store, as the relationships between the sisters and their mistress seem to change totally from one minute to the next. By thrusting the audience into this complex psychological game without telling us the rules, Genet is able to communicate the sheer strangeness of the sisters' inner lives; some act of violence seems necessary to shatter the feverish atmosphere.

But it is never clear whether that violence is going to be directed against Madame or by one sister against another. Claire, the younger sister, is more resolute in her hatred of Madame, and seems willing to actually carry out the murder they continually plot; Solange wavers between resentment of Madame and fawning subservience. The one chance for the murder to come off seems to be ruined when Madame refuses the poisoned tea Claire offers her; this narrow escape leaves the sisters mired in their own hostility, and in the end it seems that one or the other of them will be forced to take Madame's place.

So often does The Maids trick the audience that, even when it is over, it's difficult to say just what has happened. The real point is not to narrate the murder--as in the recent film Sister My Sister, another treatment of the same incident--but to create the atmosphere of insanity; and this requires much better acting than the Pool Theater production could boast. Rutkowski could communicate Claire's sense of superiority only through a sullen, sneering tone; she seemed irritable but not haughty.

As Solange, Folstein's performance was a collection of unconvincing mannerisms--swaying back and forth, swinging her arms in the air, and speaking as if in a daze. Instead of being menacing, she seemed simply loopy, like a evil version of Carol Kane--you know something is wrong when "I hate her! I loathe her!" becomes a laugh line. Barbara Matteau's brief turn as Madame, while awkward, succeeded in injecting some relieving frivolity into the play.

The biggest problem with the performances, however, was the persistent misreading of lines, which often made it seem as if the actors didn't understand what they were saying. One had the impression that the dream-like quality of the play as a whole left the actors feeling that individual lines didn't have to make sense, as long as they were uttered in an impassioned murmur. As a result, this production of The Maids substituted vagueness for mystery. For this difficult and frequently purple writing to come to life, more conviction and understanding are needed.