The two actresses who abruptly change the mood are instantly captivating. The relationship between them keeps shifting in our view in a play that (like most plays) is largely about shifting identities. The emotions between the two leads are complicated and mercurial; oscillating between love and hate, admiration and disgust, pity and contempt. They are complicated in a psychologically convincing way, powered by vitriol and warped by the frustrations of class immobility - or perhaps motives less forgivable.
The third actress to join the stage is real in her fakeness, her histrionics and lack of self-awareness all too familiar from the world outside. The acting, then, is solid all round, enabling us to focus on unravelling the backstory, mapping the emotional landscape and being transported by the language, for the script (and translation) shines - wondrous, inventive and surprising. This is a play in which words are flung around cheaply by hurt characters who want to hurt each other - but what words.As a play about two maids who fantasise about killing their mistress, one can expect it to be dark, but better than dark, it's deep. The odd rituals the maids perform invoke that strange, magical fear of what happens if you pretend too hard - perhaps something in the back of the minds of the actresses taking on these characters.
Seeing this play was sweet relief, for it was a rare trip to the theatre that did everything I want a play to do; everything was so well done, there was nothing to stop me sinking into it, being fascinated by the emotional acuity, coming away with things to think about and having my synapses fired by the wonder and mystery of the language. Go and see it.