WHEN Eve Jamieson was invited to direct Jean Genet's play, The Maids, at Dundee Rep, it wasn't the regular experience for an incoming director. While Jamieson has more than 30 years theatrical experience behind her, the Rep's ensemble company are a tight-knit group, and Irene Macdougall, Ann Louise Ross and Emily Winter, who appear in Jamieson's production, which opens tonight, have been working together cheek by jowl for 18 years.

Given that power structures lie at the heart of Genet's play about two put-upon sisters who fantasise about killing their mistress, such existing intimacy might well have thrown up some accidental but hopefully not fatal parallels. As it is, Jamieson has used the close relationship between her three female leads to the show's advantage.

“There's a fearlessness there,” says Jamieson, mid-way through talking about her production the day after the show's first preview. “Normally, the director is the one who brings things together, but I've come into things where these long-standing relationships already exist, and that's made for an experience that is exciting and challenging, but in some ways it's scary as well. These are three wonderful actresses who know each other really well, which means we can try all these different things out without having to worry about people being shy of each other.”

This involved Jamieson and her cast looking closely at a text with multiple meanings, delving beyond the obvious to find out what it meant for them.

“There can be many different interpretations,” Jamieson explains. “There are standard themes in there – jealousy, betrayal, envy, disgust, loathing, cruelty – but for me, there's a lot going on in there as well about power. Genet said he didn't want the play to be concerning itself with the poverty of the maids, and that interested me, and I thought a lot about what it means to be trapped. Things like Stockholm Syndrome came up, and also what it meant to be literally trapped by the restraints of employment, where you cannot get out of a situation, and no matter how hard you try, those with the power will crush you.

“When you see something you want, and you strive for it until you can have it, is that going to solve everything? There's something there about rising up and fighting the existing social order, and how, if you become something more than what you are, do you get recognised for that? The cruel reality for the maids is that despite everything, they can never become what they want to be, because they don't have the tools to do that. They can play act, but society won't allow them to make that leap and be able to change. That, for me, is why I think Genet's play has such resonances today.”

Genet loosely based The Maids on a real life incident that occurred in 1933, when the Papin sisters bludgeoned their mistress to death before being found in bed together with a blood-soaked hammer. The case scandalised 1930s France, and captured the headlines even more when intellectuals including Simone de Beauvoir claimed that the sisters were victims of a bourgeoisie who treated their servants with contempt. This echoed Genet's own experience after being championed by the likes of Jean Cocteau and Jean-Paul Sartre after being threatened with a life sentence in prison following numerous convictions for petty thievery.

The last time The Maids was seen in Scotland was in a production by Stewart Laing at the Citizens Theatre, Glasgow, and featured an all male cast. This idea drew from the published introduction to the play by Sartre, who noted Genet's own desire in his autobiographical novel, Our Lady of the Flowers, when he stated that if he ever wrote a play for women that he would prefer men to play them. This baton had previously been taken up by flamboyant choreographer and director Lindsay Kemp, who directed Tim Curry in a production of The Maids, also at the Citz, in 1971. Kemp also directed Flowers, his seminal dance-theatre interpretation of Our Lady of the Flowers. It was Kemp too who taught David Bowie dance and mime, choreographing his Ziggy Stardust tour, and perhaps giving him the inspiration to write his Genet referencing hit single, The Jean Genie.

“I read that as well,” says Jamieson of Genet's published claim highlighted by Sartre. “I also read that there was a production with men in it, and he hated it. Then there was another one, and he loved it. That's the fascinating thing with Genet. He contradicts himself all the time. It's like when he said that if he was going to be called a criminal then he was going to be one, and he would become powerful, and you can see that today, when criminals are writing books and becoming heroes in the same way that Genet did.”

The Maids marks a rare sighting of Jamieson as a director in a rep theatre since she moved into education, having previously been director of the School of Theatre at The Space, the purpose built performance and training space that forms part of Dundee and Angus College. Jamieson is currently lecturer in acting and directing at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland in Glasgow, where she has directed students in more than 30 productions, including Brecht's The Life of Galileo, and Animal, by the late Tom McGrath.

Jamieson's career dates back to her tenure as artistic director of Winged Horse theatre company, taking over the role from former Dundee Rep artistic director and founder of the theatre's ensemble company, Hamish Glen. For five years Jamieson worked with TAG, the then Citizens Theatre based touring theatre in education company, and directed shows at Perth Theatre, the Byre Theatre, St Andrew's, Cumbernauld Theatre, and with new writing based company, Annexe Theatre.

“I've been directing for 30 years,” Jamieson says, “and while obviously students have different needs to professional actors working in an ensemble as they do at Dundee Rep, I don't feel like it's doing something different. Directing is directing is directing. It's not like this is breaking new ground for me.”

The Maids, on the other hand, is a play that continues to push boundaries.

“I think Genet is one of those writers who are on a must see list,” says Jamieson. “What was exciting about him was that he was really against naturalism, and he used different forms to challenge what was going on in the world. The Maids isn't a naturalistic piece of work. Genet's theatre is a theatre of ideas, a theatre of cruelty. It's absurdist and epic, and that mix of styles is why it still stands up, because we're much more used to theatre doing that today, and that's what makes Genet's theatre so contemporary.

“Genet's writing is so beautiful, poetic and frightening, and what I've noticed at the previews is that the audience were very still when they're watching the play, because they had to listen. You can't relax, because you have to listen in order to see which way things might be going. You have to let the words impact on you, and see how that informs you, or affirms a thought you might have about where you think things are going, but then doesn't.

“There's a Brechtian side to the play in that way. It's asking who really has the power, and what is power. Within that, there's a freedom to go in several different directions, which is why actors are so fascinated by Genet's work, and which is what is so exciting about doing his plays today.”

The Maids, Dundee Rep, until November 4th.

www.dundeerep.co.uk