Arts, Etc.Theater

‘Maids’ challenges concepts of beauty

"The Maids," the senior acting thesis of Jessica Wotherspoon, opened Thursday and played until Saturday. The play featured Wotherspoon, freshman Soraya Askari (both pictured) and freshman Brianna Roth. Wotherspoon said she chose the play because of its critique of what is considered beautiful. The play was directed by senior David Baldizon. / photo by Jennifer Contreras
“The Maids,” the senior acting thesis of Jessica Wotherspoon, opened Thursday and played until Saturday. The play featured Wotherspoon, freshman Soraya Askari (both pictured) and freshman Brianna Roth. Wotherspoon said she chose the play because of its critique of what is considered beautiful. The play was directed by senior David Baldizon. / photo by Jennifer Contreras

by Valerie Rojas
Staff Writer

Society has come to associate beauty with the image of a scantily clad, barely legal, pop-star pasted on the cover of Cosmopolitan.

The University of La Verne’s Department of Theatre Arts recently explored the idea of beauty, moving the audience to tears and revealing that there is more to beauty than mascara and airbrushing.

“The Maids,” presented in the Cabaret Theatre, Feb. 27, 28 and March 1, is the senior acting thesis of Jessica Wotherspoon.

“The Maids” was written by Jean Genet, a French novelist, playwright and poet in the 1940s. Even though the play was written more than 60 years ago, it is still important to us today.

Directed by senior David Baldizon, the play was an emotionally charged, morbid examination of self and beauty.

The Cabaret Theatre was transformed for the evening. Lacy gowns hung from the roof. Pictures of Audrey Hepburn, Cindy Crawford and a half-naked Christina Aguilera, all familiar images of beauty, flashed on a sheet hanging in the background.

In the middle of the dim room sat Wotherspoon, Soraya Askari and Brianna Roth. Each actress, engulfed in makeup, gave birth to her respective character.

As the play began, the audience was pulled into an interesting scenario. Two sisters, Claire and Solange (played by Wotherspoon and Askari), desperate to escape the clutches of the arrogant and sultry Madame (played by Roth), immerse themselves in a dream world in which they have the upper hand, prove their beauty and gain their freedom.

What gave this play such an emotional charge was the actresses’ obvious connection.

These women were not cold strangers. They seemed to share a genuine concern for each other and for the message of this play. The intimacy shared by such a small cast was obvious to the audience, making the performance better.

“A reason we got so close is because the story, the meaning behind it,” Wotherspoon said. “We all really felt that somehow in some form, it needed to be shared.”

Wotherspoon chose this play four or five years ago, after reading it in a masters of drama class. After initial confusion and numerous readings, the meaning and the need to present it to the world was apparent, she said.

Wotherspoon, Askari and Roth each did a magnificent job revealing the different sides of beauty and making the viewers examine themselves as well.

As each character paraded across the stage, some a little more loudly than others, one could feel somehow attached to each woman; one debates what beauty really means.

The realization is that everyone is beautiful. They may not be as skinny as a 16- year-old singing sensation, but that is not all that matters.

This performance teaches that there is more to beauty than designer labels and fake breasts.

“You can’t find beauty in a magazine or find beauty in make-up,” Baldizon said. “You already exude it, you just have to realize it, and once you realize it, you know, okay, it’s there. And that is contagious to people. That’s the message.”

Valerie Rojas, Editor in Chief
Valerie Rojas
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Jennifer Contreras, Editorial Director
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