Jonathan J. Miner
It's complicated: Rosy Bayuk, Laura Varela, Judy Kimball and Isabella Virrueta in "The Clean House."
In The Clean House, things get messy very quickly.
When the play begins, Lane, a repressed, middle-aged doctor, lives in an immaculate house with stark white walls and white leather couch, one potted plant perfectly positioned on the white windowsill. White candles are symmetrically arranged on the coffee table, and a bowl of white wrapped candy sits pristinely center stage. By the end of the play, the stage is littered with wadded up paper, half-eaten apples, turmeric, potting soil and a large yew tree.
The Clean House — Sarah Ruhl’s quirky Pulitzer finalist presented by the Madison Theatre Guild through November 21 at the Bartell Theatre — uses “clean” as a metaphor for sterile relationships, a need for control, misplaced priorities and repressed emotions.
Lane (Rosy Bayuk) announces in her opening monologue that going to medical school exempts her from having to clean her own house. Her sister, Virginia (Judy Kimball), explains that cleaning provides her a sense of accomplishment and keeps her from having dangerous thoughts about how unfulfilled her life is. Matilde (Isabella Virrueta), Lane’s Brazilian cleaning lady, doesn’t see the point of cleaning. Her philosophy is, if the table is dirty, look at the ceiling. Besides, she has much more important work to do: She is trying to create the world’s perfect joke.
Over the course of the play Lane’s clean, orderly world comes apart. Her maid won’t do her job. Her sister sneaks into her house to clean instead. Her husband, Charles (Edric Johnson), a surgeon, falls in love with Ana (Laura Varela), a terminally ill Argentinean patient. Faced with all these messy crises, the characters reach out in the most unexpected ways to find compassion for one another.
Varela’s performance stands out. She disappears into her roles, as Matilde’s memory of her gleeful mother and as Ana, the other woman who quickly inserts herself as part of the family. In both of these parts, Varela emanates warmth, contrasting with Lane and her tight grip on her emotions.
As Matilde, the Brazilian storyteller, Isabella Virrueta has the immensely difficult task of relaying sections of text — mostly jokes — directly to the audience in Portuguese. Some in the audience chuckled at the end of her long monologues, but most were left entertained solely by the Virrueta’s enthusiasm and the lyrical sounds of a language we didn’t understand.
Overall, the production, directed by Betty Diamond, could have been more effective if it was, well, messier. When one character willfully trashes the house, it’s done in a careful way. When actors have breakdowns and breakthroughs, they remain emotionally stiff. With an entire stage to explore, characters often end up standing in straight lines on either side of the couch.
These quibbles aside, Madison Theater Guild should be commended for taking on such a challenging play, encouraging audiences to pursue laughter instead of order.
