Review of Artist Rep’s “The Clean House”
February 4, 2008 12:28 am
I saw Sara Ruhl’s Pulitzer-nominated “The Clean House,” which opened Friday the 25th at Artists Repertory Theatre. It’s a life-affirming comedy about Lane, a control- freak doctor who believes she “didn’t go to medical school to clean her own house.” She hires a Brazilian cleaning woman named Matilde who would rather invent jokes than clean a bathroom. Lane’s sister Virginia, who enjoys cleaning more than anything (as it is how she finds any order in the world), begins cleaning her sister’s house behind her back. It’s a win-win for all involved until Lane’s husband announces that he has fallen in love with his soul-mate, a woman named Ana. This is when things turn from clean to messy.
The first act is thoroughly entertaining. We see the three main women of the show (uptight sisters Lane and Virginia and depressed-but-determined-to-be-funny Matilde) interact. The show opens with Matilde telling a joke in Portuguese. Whatever the joke is about, it’s funny in the manner in which she tells it. Amaya Villazan, who plays Matilde, is a strong, grounded actor and maintained a vulnerability to her character which added value to the production. Marilyn Stacey’s Virginia always seemed about ready to pop with nervous tension and was able to make a few scenes turn funny with her physical comedy and/or line deliveries. The script had flow and the appropriate wit to match as it mixed comedy with emotional reality.
But then the audience suffered as the play dropped off in the second act. The flow stopped as the plot became predictable, and the characters stayed the same in that we did not get to know them any further. We were not let in on their individual struggles. And indeed they had none, as their emotional lives came in just a few muted colors. The characters were too clean, making the title of the show painfully accurate. It also didn’t help that a few scenes were held on a balcony in a back corner of the theater, forcing most of the audience to twist their necks for long moments.
The play is worth seeing as long as you leave at intermission. It runs until March 2nd.
One Response to “Review of Artist Rep’s “The Clean House””
Good review honey! …also, if we had left at the intermission we wouldn’t have gotten condiments thrown at us!
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