The twin has long been a favored motif in literature; as a way of refracting truth into its opposites, the double is darkly telling. San Diego-based gay artists Robert and Donald Kinney have a vested interest in this doubling device, for they are identical twins. Adapting Jean Genet's The Maids, the Kinneys have made an outlandish, queasily funny work that thrives on (am)bivalence. The action is simple: while their rich madame is gone, the two servants, played by Robert and Donald, occupy her chambers, costuming themselves in her opulence and indulging in deliriums of retribution. This psyched-out drama is performed on a single set, a lavishly claustrophobic room, bedecked with gaudy tropical colors and floral designs. At its base, the play is about the neurotic distortions caused by class. But its richness is to be found in the intricate blurring of the maids. Attired as women, the gay twins uncannily merge characters already in flux. Genet resisted clarity by cross-dressing the maids as master and servant. The Kinneys undermine this play of power by confounding gender and, even, genealogy. The Maids dazzles in its total confusion of character and sexuality. --Steve Seid