Complex ‘House’ marries wit, humor
“The Clean House” is a welcome surprise, in more ways than one.
First, this Sarah Ruhl play is new to the Inland Northwest; it’s only about a year removed from its critically acclaimed Lincoln Center run.
Second, the play itself is full of surprises, without a single predictable moment. Over the course of this quick, sharp little comedy we see:
•A maid telling two knee-slapping sex jokes – entirely in Portugese.
•A man trudging home from Alaska with a tree on his shoulder – after the airline wouldn’t let him stow it in the overheard bin.
•A woman committing assisted suicide by means of a joke – dying, quite literally, of laughter.
What this Pulitzer Prize finalist lacks in linear plot, or in strict adherence to realism, it makes up for in sheer creative energy. In this cheerful and well-directed production at Interplayers, the result is a delightful evening of wit, invention and, yes, philosophy.
Ruhl marshals all of this magic and creativity to the service of ideas, the main one condensed to this: We can never control the messy thing called life, so we might as well extract as many laughs as possible.
Director Karen Kalensky does an excellent job of setting up this idea both dramatically and visually. The set is entirely in black and white, and the home of Type-A doctors Lane (Selena Schopfer) and Charles (Gary Pierce) is almost all white, signifying sterility. Over the course of the show, this all-white floor becomes increasingly covered in shredded paper, half-eaten apples and even soil from a potted plant.
Why? Because life takes its usual messy and unexpected course. Charles has an affair with Anna (Jackie Davis), which sets in motion a crazy soap opera plot that no soap opera would ever attempt.
Silvia Lazo is wonderfully watchable at the center of this five-person ensemble as the doctors’ new Brazilian housekeeper, Mathilde. Mathilde, we learn right away, is the kind of housekeeper who is too depressed to actually clean. In fact, the housekeeping is what makes her depressed. She’s the daughter, she says, of the two funniest people in Brazil, and now that they have died, she believes it is her destiny to do nothing but tell jokes and make the world laugh.
Lazo has a funny and quirky vocal delivery, with excellent comic timing. She actually tells a joke about comic timing – and times it perfectly. Even better, she has exceptionally expressive body language, all angles and knees and elbows, like an especially attractive Olive Oyl. She moves with absolute comic confidence. Even when standing still, her feet will be toed inward or her arms held akimbo in a way that adds personality to the character.
And Lazo can speak Portugese like a native Brazilian, because, well, she is. She was born and raised in Sao Paolo.
Anne Selcoe makes the most of another key role, Virginia, the sister of the haughty physician, Lane. Virginia loves cleaning so much that she actually makes a deal with Mathilde to secretly take over cleaning duties. By the end of the play, it is Virginia who undergoes the biggest change, diving face first into the potting soil.
At the risk of simplifying this largely indescribable plot, control-freak Lane and neat-freak Virginia learn to loosen up and laugh a little. If that sounds too pat, it never comes off that way in the play, because Ruhl embeds these themes in so many layers.
The ensemble’s enthusiasm is sometimes stronger than its technique. Enunciation and volume are problems throughout – even one of the key closing lines was difficult to make out. Too many line readings came off as stiff and by rote. Reactions were often too muted. Another problem on the technical side: There were too many “dead” spots in the lighting.
Yet Kalensky’s direction is effective throughout. She plays a key confrontation between Lane and Virginia as a phone conversation. Yet they are actually five feet away from each other, staring daggers.
I can’t guarantee you won’t be baffled by an occasional scene in “The Clean House.” But I’m almost dead-solid certain that you won’t be bored.