[NEohioPAL]Berko review: THE CLEAN HOUSE (Cleveland Play House)

[Roy Berko]

Quirky ‘THE CLEAN HOUSE’ at CPH

Roy Berko

(Member, American Theatre Critics Association)

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‘THE CLEAN HOUSE,’ Sarah Ruhl’s award winning play,
which is now in production at the Cleveland Play
House, is the kind of show audiences will either love
or hate.   The overheard comments by exiting patrons
at the conclusion ranged all over the place regarding
their thoughts of the production.

The play was a finalist for the 2005 Pulitzer Prize
and won the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize for best play
written in English by a female playwright in 2004. 
Yet, reviews of the show’s productions in New York and
elsewhere were very mixed.  It was added to and taken
off several theatre’s production schedules due to
questions over audience appeal.

Ruhl indicates that the germ for the play came from
real life.  According to the author, the opening
monologue, “I didn’t go to medical school to clean my
own house,” came from a comment she overheard at a
cocktail party.  Ruhl took this statement and rolled
out a play which explores relationships and our need
for purpose, while examining the Great American class
divide.   Isn’t it interesting that the upper and
middle classes who want clean homes, hire the lower
middle and lower classes to do the work!

One of the most fascinating aspects of the play is
that the author look at the rituals of cleaning and
death as parallel processes.  According to Ruhl, “the
byproducts of life are waste and chaos, every time we
clean we try to keep chaos at bay.”  She parallels
that to the role of the doctor, the occupation of her
lead character, who spends her days helping her
patients fight the byproducts of their diseases, but
won’t apply the same principles to her life and her
home.

Don’t get the idea that ‘THE CLEAN HOUSE’ is a
tragedy.  It has very serious undertones, but it is
also about jokes and ice cream and apples.  In fact,
the most important writing element of the script is
the attempt to create the perfect joke.  Our heroine
finally conceives it, but, like life itself, we never
quite hear it, we never really “get” it.

With that philosophical exposition, what’s the play
about?  Lane, a successful and exacting American
doctor, believes her home should be spotless but wants
nothing to do with the cleaning of it.  Mathilde, the
Brazilian maid hired to clean Lane’s house, is
completely uninterested in housecleaning – her parents
were the funniest people in their village and she is
obsessively focused on her search for the perfect
joke. Virginia, Lane’s sister, has a cleaning fetish
and believes it immoral not to clean one’s home. 
Lane’s surgeon husband has fallen deeply in love with
one of his patients, a dying woman who has a unique
view of life and death.  All this combines to make for
a potentially thought-provoking experience.

The Cleveland Play House production has an excellent
cast, is well paced by director Davis McCallum and has
a startling attractive set by Andromache Chalfant. 
The use of projections to interpret the Portugese
spoken lines is creative.

Ursula Cataan, who has a Salma Hayek personality and
resemblance, is delightful as Matilda.  Patricia
Hodges is properly uptight as Lane. Beth Dixon gives a
practical base to Virginia, Lane’s sister.  Janis
Dardaris shines as  the dying Ana.  Only Terry Layman
disappoints as Lane’s husband.  He never seems real. 
Part of this may be due to the unrealistic lines he is
given by the playwright and the equally non-believable
situation of trekking in Alaska with the goal of
finding a tree which supposedly will cure Ana’s
cancer.  (Would a doctor do that?)

CAPSULE JUDGMENT:  Seldom do I leave a theatre with a
feeling of ambivalence.  This was not the case with
‘THE CLEAN HOUSE.’  I didn’t love it, I didn’t hate
it, I can’t recommend not seeing it, but I can’t say,
“go.”  I guess I’ll just have to go clean my house and
delve into the psychology of the activity.

For tickets to ‘THE CLEAN HOUSE’ which runs through
MARCH 25 at the Cleveland Play House call 216-795-7000
or go on-line to www.clevelandplayhouse.com.   

The next CPT production is ‘ELLA’ from March 23
through April 15.  The production stars Tina Fabrique
and examines the memories of Ella Fitzgerald through
dialogue and songs such as “That Old Black Magic,”
“A-Tisket, A-Tasket,” “How High the Moon” and “They
Can’t Take That Away from Me.”


Roy Berko's blog, which contains theatre and dance reviews from 2002 through 2007, as well as his consulting and publications information, can be found at http://royberko.info
      
Roy's theatre and dance reviews appear regularly on NeOHIOpal, an on-line source.   To subscribe to this free service via the World Wide Web, visit http://lists.fredsternfeld.com/mailman/listinfo/neohiopal.  His reviews also appear on www.coolcleveland.com


 
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