Genet’s The Maids : performativity in performance

Abstract

The notion of performativity has become a significant means of understanding the construction of sexual and gendered identities. Ironically, the same concept has posed certain problems for theatre studies because of the definitional tensions between performativity and theatricality. The following study of Genet’s The Maids as both playtext and production proposes that, in this example, theatricality is the vehicle for the expression of performativity and that Genet’s drama prefigures contemporary strands of cultural thought and theory.