Jean Genet’s “The Maids” will spruce up Los Angeles next month courtesy of the Eclectic Company Theatre in Valley Village (May 29-June 27). Meanwhile, you can see Glenda Jackson and Susannah York in a stylish film adaptation of this offbeat psychodrama now on DVD; the ladies are deliciously theatrical in the title roles, as the sibling servants of Vivien Merchant. It’s just one of 14 titles in the superb American Film Theatre collection available from Kino International.

One of the selling points of this 1973-75 Ely Landau series when the pictures were originally released to theatres was the promise (as I recall) the films would never be shown again. Never is a long time; the films vanished for roughly three decades before they began turning up on cable TV and VHS. The casts alone are reason enough to see these well-made films, not to mention a stellar selection of plays; it’s terrific to have them all on DVD.

Lee Marvin is miscast as Hickey in Eugene O’Neill’s “The Iceman Cometh” (a role that should’ve gone to Jason Robards Jr.), but the film offers Fredric March in his last performance and Jeff Bridges in one his earliest. Zero Mostel reprises one of his greatest stage portrayals in Eugene Ionesco’s “Rhinoceros,” which reteamed him with Gene Wilder for the only time after “The Producers.”

The AFT version of “Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris” (now on stage at the Colony Theatre Company in Burbank through May 9) boasts Brel himself singing his signature chanson, “Ne Me Quitte Pas.” Katharine Hepburn, Paul Scofield and Joseph Cotten are teamed in Edward Albee’s “A Delicate Balance,” while Laurence Olivier directs himself, Joan Plowright and Derek Jacobi in Chekhov’s “Three Sisters.”

Pinter’s “The Homecoming,” Brecht’s “Galileo,” Kurt Weill’s “Lost in the Stars” and Brian Friel’s “Philadelphia, Here I Come!” are among the other titles in the series. Alan Bates, John Gielgud, Judi Dench, Jessica Tandy, Brock Peters, Siobhan McKenna, Robert Ryan and other stars headline the casts. Directors include Tony Richardson, Lindsay Anderson and John Frankenheimer. The films are available individually, in mini-collections and as a complete set.

More from Jordan:

Criterion Collection’s ‘Shaw on Film’ DVD set, ‘Beckett on Screen’
Newport Beach Film Fest screens documentaries, student showcases
‘Acting’ and ‘Einstein’ offer lessons in art and life at Theatre West

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