It’s no news to anyone that servants often harbor resentment toward their masters. In 1933, a pair of French maids – the Papin sisters – made world headlines when they killed their mistress and her daughter in a particularly heinous fashion. This event has been recorded more than once on film, most recently in Jean-Pierre Denis’ 2000 film whose English title is Murderous Maids.

In 1946, French dramatist Jean Genet took the same story, pushed it through his own complicated psyche and gave us The Maids, currently on the boards at 6th@Penn Theatre.

The play takes place in Madame’s boudoir, a small, airless space crammed to the walls with fancy dresses, cosmetics, jewelry, a sofa and a dressing table. Madame (Anne Tran) is doing what women of leisure do –deciding what to wear – while Claire (Laurie Lehmann-Gray) is helping. Except that Madame is out, and maids Claire and Solange (Dana Hooley) are playacting, something they do with apparent frequency. Obsessed by notions of role and social class, they also have rather unusual ideas about crime. They are happy to have betrayed Madame’s lover to the police, resulting in his arrest; at the same time they show a chilling self-loathing as they play their sadomasochistic games.

These maids are much more complex, psychological cases than the Papin sisters seem to have been. Genet, of course, was a psychological case himself. Abandoned at birth, he ended up in a reformatory when his foster mother accused him of stealing. Genet was open about his homosexuality, admired crime and criminals and had his own fascination with social roles, evidenced in contempt for the society that rejected him. He later formulated his theory of criminal/religious hierarchy: the worse the crime, the more saintly the criminal. “We shall be the eternal couple,” Claire says. “The criminal and the saint.”

The Maids isn’t really about plot as much as it is about psychology, but the story line is that the maids have discussed killing Madame many times, and Solange has made an unsuccessful attempt, leading to more abuse and loathing from her sister and, in fact, herself. Claire has decided to put a lethal dose of pills in Madame’s tea at the next possible moment.

Lehmann-Gray’s Claire and Hooley’s Solange are wondrously strange creatures, the type that make you want to turn your head or run for the door. It’s difficult to decide whether they are sick or just so angry that they are no longer self-aware.

San Diego Repertory’s Sam Woodhouse directs this difficult piece, keeping both tension and the audience’s discomfort level high throughout.

Madame does eventually come home, and Claire determines to carry out the plan. What happens is so very Genet – and so sad – that it is literally difficult to watch.

The Maids is not for all markets, but this is as good a production of it as you are likely to see.

Here’s the pitch: College professor, in search of backing for his play, finds it from the father of a former student. Said father turns out to be a Mafia don.

If that doesn’t sound like a recipe for potential theatrical disaster, I don’t know what does. Fortunately, playwright Tom Dulack keeps it this side of either a sitcom or a bad movie plot, limits the old jokes and creates enough genuinely interesting characters to give Breaking Legs wings.

And soar it does, due in no small part to a spectacular set by resident North Coast Repertory Theatre wizard Marty Burnett. It’s a single set – a restaurant in a New England university town, all chrome and red faux leather.

English professor Terence (John Nutten) happens into the restaurant one day to find former student Angie (Jennifer Eve Kraus) waiting tables – and, not coincidentally, looking fabulous in a short leather skirt and green silk blouse. In the course of catching up, Terence mentions his play and Angie suggests that her father Lou (Von Schauer) might be interested in backing it. Terence begins to get an idea what he’s dealing with when he reminds Angie what a talented student she was and asks if she ever thinks about returning to finish her degree.

“I dunno,” she says. “I’m too spoiled. Money, cars, the pleasures of the flesh …” This is clearly not the world of Frankie and Johnnie or The Most Happy Fella.

When Lou shows up and hears the pitch, it’s not the money he’s concerned about, it’s whether he’ll get to do the stretch-limo/red-carpet routine on opening night. Of course he also hopes to marry the 25-year-old Angie off, and considers Terence a prospect.

Lou says he’s disposed to put up the dough, but he’ll have to check with his “partners” –the taciturn Tino (Paul Bourque) and the garrulous Mike (Robert Grossman), who spends the night laughing without moving his lips. “I got sloshed one night, and carved up,” he explains, which deadened his facial muscles.

Breaking Legs has a simple, even shopworn plot. It’s a gentle collision, mostly comic, of two worlds – art and commerce, academia and the underworld. But the script is good-natured, many of the lines funny, the acting and directing by Geoffrey Sherman superb.

Kraus (who was stunning in the San Diego Rep’s Stop Kiss) is just right – simple, down-to-earth and oh, so sexy. Grossman has the best lines, and the most difficult part. He literally doesnt crack a smile the whole time. The always-reliable Schauer and Bourque are also solid in less showy roles.

You may not want to break bread with these wise guys, but you’ve got to giggle when Mike turns on the Broadway vocabulary: “Break your legs.”

The Maids plays Thursday-Saturday at 8:00 p.m. and Sunday at 2:00 p.m. through July 25 at 6th@Penn Theatre. For tickets call (888) 212-7718. For information/directions call (619) 688-9210.

Breaking Legs runs through Aug. 8 at North Coast Repertory Theatre in Solana Beach. Performances are Tuesday-Saturday at 8:00 p.m.; Sunday at 2:00 p.m. and 8:00 p.m. Call (858) 481-1055.