Why do I find it hard to write the next line?

"Power may be at the end of a gun, but sometimes it's also at the end of the shadow or the image of a gun." - Jean Genet

And so to the theatre. The big scorchio in Yorkshire is inevitably over and so indoor stuff is once more back on the agenda. Upon walking into the foyer I was confronted by a huge host of women of a certain age, glammed up to the eyeballs in spangly, tight-fitting clothes, drinking prosecco and obviously on a night out without their husbands. Clearly this scenario is neither unknown nor unwelcome to Epictetus; indeed groups of such ladies often congregate wherever he is to be found. ["Could it be," interrupts a Rhetorical Pedant "that it is in fact you who hang around them, uninvited and unwanted, like a bad smell?"] However, when one is destined for an evening of French absurdism in the form of Jean Genet's 'Les Bonnes', one's expectations of the audience are rather different.

A chap called Kemp who used to be in Eastenders

It turned out that they were there to see Martin Kemp in the main house, a man with whom I am not very familiar, except to note that he is no relation to either Will Kempe, recently featured in this very blog, or to Ross Kemp. The relevance of the latter is that the last time that I had such an experience at the theatre was when I saw Kemp, R. give his Petruchio. I can well remember the looks of tattooed bafflement as the blank verse rolled out across the stalls. For the record, he wasn't bad at all.

A chap called Kemp who used to be in Eastenders

Anyway, back in the studio theatre, two maids, sisters, were planning to murder their mistress, were acting out their fantasies or, just possibly, had already done it. I have to hedge my bets because it is not entirely clear what the hell is or is not going on. The company's fine physical theatre and excellent acting carried us along, but we were left to make up our own mind what Genet is saying. For myself, I remain as convinced as I was before that killing those who have power is probably the only way the rest of us are ever going to get our hands on it. Another audience member to whom I spoke astutely referenced Psycho (the play predates the film) and the company themselves cryptically refer to the paradox of being trapped by freedom. You pays your money and you takes your choice.