Genet's The Maids was based on a notorious true story about two sisters
who murdered their bourgeois employer. Re-imagined as a dangerous
combination of innocence and incest, Sister My Sister achieves the
same powerful evocation of the sisters' shared fantasy world as the
play. Here, though, the overtones of class and sexuality are
negligible. The stifling lassitude of the house secludes the sisters
(Richardson and May) in an isolation made hyper-sensual by the
privations imposed by Madame (Walters). May is stunning as the younger
sister, who worships Richardson to the point of hysteria, initiating
the forbidden physical relationship.
