Vitus Theater: "Die Zofen"

The Maids / Glenda Jackson and Susanna York

Les Bonnes / SOLANGE, doucement d'abord

WOMEN MURDER WOMEN: CASE STUDIES IN THEATRE AND FILM

by MARIAN LEA MCCURDY

ABSTRACT

This thesis looks at two cases of women who murdered women – the Papin sisters (Le Mans, 1933) and Parker-Hulme (Christchurch, 1954) – and considers their diverse representations in theatre and film, paying particular attention to Jean Genet’s play The Maid (1947), Peter Jackson’s film Heavenly Creatures (1994) and Peter Falkenberg’s film Remake (2007), in which I played a part. What happens when two women (sisters, girl friends) commit violent acts together – not against a man, or a child, but against another woman, a mother or (as in the case of the Papin sisters) against women symbolically standing in place of the mother? How are these two cases – the Papin sisters and Parker-Hulme – presented in historical documents, reinterpreted in political, psychoanalytic and feminist theories, and represented in theatre and film? How might these works of theatre and film, in particular, be seen to explain – or exploit – these cases for an audience? How is the relationship between prurience – the peeping at women doing something bad – and the use of these cases to produce social commentary and/or art, better understood by looking at these objects of fascination ourselves? My thesis explores how these cases continue to interest and inspire artists and intellectuals, as well as the general public – both because they can be seen to violate fundamental social taboos against mother-murder and incest, and because of the challenge they pose for representation in theatre or film.

view full thesis at: [http://ir.canterbury.ac.nz/bitstream/10092/1938/1/thesis_fulltext.pdf]

THE CRIME OF THE PAPIN SISTERS

In February, 1933, the whole of France was horrified to learn of an unspeakably savage double murder that had taken place in the town of Le Mans. Two respectable, middle-class women, mother and daughter, had been murdered by their maids, two sisters who lived in the house. The maids had not simply killed the women, but had gouged their eyes out with their fingers while they were alive and had then used a hammer and knife to reduce both women to a bloody pulp. In both cases, there were no wounds to the body. Apart from some gashes to the daughter's legs, the full force of the attack was directed at the heads and the victims were left literally unrecognisable...(click to read full article)

from: [http://papinsisters.tripod.com/crime.htm]

Papin sisters

Christine and Lea Papin were two French maids who murdered their employer's wife and daughter in Le Mans,France, on 2nd February, 1933. This incident had a significant influence on French intellectuals Genet, Sartre andLacan, who sought to analyse it, and it was thought of by some as symbolic of class struggle. The case has formed the basis of a number of films and plays.

Life and Crime

Christine (born 8th March, 1905) and Lea (born 15th September, 1911) had grown up in villages south of Le Mans. They had another sister, Emilia, who became a nun. Both of them spent time in institutions as a result of the breakdown of their parents' marriage. As they grew older, they worked as maids in various Le Mans homes, preferring, whenever possible, to work together.

From about 1926, they worked as live-in maids in the home of Monsieur Rene Lancelin, a retired solicitor, in Rue Bruyere, Le Mans. The family was also made up of his wife and adult daughter, who was still living with her parents (another daughter was married). The two maids were extremely quiet and retiring young women, who kept to themselves and appeared to have no interest but each other...

click to view full article: [http://en.academic.ru/dic.nsf/enwiki/1484644]

The Maids / Alison Croggon

I vividly remember my first encounter with the writing of Jean Genet. I was around nineteen and for reasons I forget - perhaps no reason - I picked up his first novel, Our Lady of the Flowers. I read it in a kind of daze: I found myself hypnotised by the sheer decadent sensuality of the prose, and at the same time completely confused. I did not understand this moral universe at all.

Yet, when I reached its final pages, there occurred one of those perceptual shifts that art can occasionally produce, a kind of click; the mental equivalent, I suppose, of those Victorian optical puzzles where you suddenly realise that what appears at first to be a white vase is also two faces in profile. It was as if, through the experience of reading it... (click to read full article)

from: [http://theatrenotes.blogspot.com/2005/05/maids.html]