The play unfolds over the course of an evening as two domestics, deeply resentful of their inferior social status, engage in a variety of increasingly lethal and sadomasochistic role-playing games, venting their rage against society. Every night in the solitude of the house, whilst their employer, Madame, is away, they steal her clothes and perform a morbid ritual, where one of them plays the role of the Madame and the other, that of the servant who tries to kill her. 

The Maids, is based on the infamous Papin sisters who savagely murdered both their mistress and her daughter in France, in 1933.