One of the most celebrated American plays of the last few years has been Sarah Ruhl's The Clean House, which premiered at the Yale Repertory Theatre in 2004, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize a year later, opened at New York's Lincoln Center in 2006 and has finally made it to the west coast of Florida in a fine production by Sarasota's Banyan Theater.
What spectators will find at the Banyan is a gentle surrealist comedy — quirky and unpredictable — about laughter, death, love and forgiveness. The most exciting thing about the show isn't Ruhl's depth of insight — she doesn't seem to have stumbled upon any new truths — but the originality of her sensibility, which offers us innovative characters, a stream-of-consciousness plot line, eccentric dialogue and an overall sympathy large enough to encompass adulterous husbands and housemaids who won't clean.
Watching The Clean House, you can't help but think how very conventional most other plays are, how slavishly they conform to rules that supposedly were overturned 80 or more years ago. Not so The Clean House: it's one part comedy routine, one part love triangle history and several parts pure whimsy. It won't change your life, but it'll (tenderly) knock your way of thinking around the room. And its bittersweet humor will have you laughing wistfully and often.
The play begins with a joke — in Portugese, without translation — and then proceeds to introduce us to a likable group of characters that includes Matilde, a Brazilian housemaid in search of the perfect joke; two doctors, Lane and Charles, married to each other; Lane's clean-freak sister Virginia; and Ana, an Argentinean woman who falls in love with surgeon Charles just before he performs her mastectomy.
The plot, insofar as there is one, kicks in when Matilde and Virginia discover a stranger's bikini underwear in Charles and Lane's wash. Moments later, Lane appears with the news that Charles has fallen in love with a 67-year-old patient, and then Charles and the exceedingly gracious Ana arrive to confess their grand amour. Before the comedy is over, Lane comes to love and forgive dying Ana; Charles goes off to Alaska to find a tree that cures cancer; and Matilde — the rebellious housemaid — gets ever nearer to the joke that's so good it might kill her.
But the play's plot isn't really central to Ruhl's intention: She's more interested in showing us new relationships, new perspectives on humor and a refreshing glance at a love that isn't about perfect young bodies frolicking at the beach in skimpy swimwear. The Clean House is as much about a state of mind as it is about its "story," and it's best enjoyed as one enjoys a piece of music: moment by moment and not for its meaning. Think of it as soft jazz: quietly surprising as it heads off in unexpected directions.
The key character is Matilde, played by the splendid Karina Barros for the utmost in comedy. Barros, who is herself Brazilian (and a performer with a list of credits the size of this page), has a wonderfully expressive face which she uses as commentary on the action, on other people's dialogue, and on her own situation. Barros' Matilde is a soft-hearted but stubborn young woman who simply doesn't like to clean houses. That she's hired herself out as a housecleaner doesn't seem to matter; she'd rather search for the perfect joke.
Coming to Matilde's rescue is Virginia, played perhaps too realistically by Geraldine Librandi. Virginia loves to clean and offers to do Matilde's job secretly, letting Matilde take the credit. The house they're cleaning belongs to Lane, portrayed by Séva Anthony as a businesslike doctor whose belief in order is of little interest to the world, which keeps sending her maids like Matilde and husbands like Charles. That husband is superbly portrayed by Robert Herrle, who knows just how to suggest that his character is part fantasy and part reality.
Whether expressing his eternal love for dying Ana or trudging across frozen Alaska in search of a wonder tree, Herrle is ultra-sincere and ultra-silly, an affable cartoon but never a caricature. Finally, Ann Morrison as Ana is charming from her first appearance, and no illness can make her an iota less enchanting. In a kindlier world, men like Charles would fall in love more often with women like Ana; on the present planet, it's mostly a fantasy.
Director Douglas Jones does a marvelous job of moving us through the various levels of the play; he's much helped by set designer James A. Florek, whose modern living room environment is as sharp and clean as Lane's life — a life that's about to get messy.
So what's the play all about? I don't think the cleanliness/dirtiness dichotomy is explored very deeply, just as I don't think Matilde's search for the perfect joke has great significance. What the play does have is a jazzy structure, a series of surprises and a remarkably sympathetic approach to loving and dying. Playwright Ruhl is courageous: She's not afraid to depart from orthodox dramatic structure, not concerned that the average audience will want average dramaturgy. I look forward to seeing more of her work and spending more time on her unusual mindscape.
The Clean House is provocative, innovative, unique; whether it announces the arrival of a new, major talent is yet to be seen.
Gypsy Revived at Ritz. Gypsy Production, which closed down many months ago when it lost its home at the Suncoast Resort, is about to revive at Ybor City's Ritz Theatre. The company, which specializes in gay-themed dramas and comedies, will open Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde on Aug. 29, to run through Sept. 14. For ticket info, call 727-644-7077 or e-mail tickets@gypsyproductions.org.
This article appears in Aug 13-19, 2008.