'Clean House' falls short of hype 'Clean House' falls short of hype (January 27, 2006)

Despite a few comic moments, TheatreWorks' latest is more like a bad trip

By Julie O'Shea

The early hype surrounding "The Clean House" was tantalizingly sweet. A 2005 Pulitzer Prize finalist, written by a young, up-and-coming L.A. playwright, the show was marketed as a funny, dirty love story. It received many stellar reviews, and playhouses across the country were clamoring to get the comedy-drama on their season lineup.

The excitement, however, may have been a bit premature.

If playwright Sarah Ruhl is hoping to get us talking about life, love, socio-economic divides and the power of a good joke, she is going about it the wrong way. Her "Clean House," which had its regional premiere at the Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts last weekend, seems more like a skewed acid trip than a profound think piece. There really is no other way to describe it.

No one's disputing that Ruhl is a gifted writer. There are a few moments in "Clean House" that are touching and even laugh-out-loud funny. But there is also a huge disconnect that overwhelms the entire production and makes us wonder if Ruhl was off in la-la-land when she wrote the script.

Not only does Ruhl have a hard time making us care about these characters -- much less the half-baked plot about an unhappy doctor and her relationship between a cheating husband, neurotic sister and oddball maid -- the show is chock full of baffling stage directions that make absolutely no sense.

Take the scene where two characters, for no apparent reason, spend five or 10 minutes just chucking apples off the set's balcony. (Those sitting in the first few rows, take heed!) And then there is the issue of subtitles. This is not a foreign production. The subtitles instead are used to fill us in on what's happening onstage -- "They fall in love ... They fall further in love" -- and just in case we miss it -- "They fall in love completely." It's unclear if this is meant to be funny or if Ruhl is trying for a deeper, Freudian meaning.

The cake topper, however, has to be the shadow puppets. Don't even try and figure out how they fit into the action; you might pull a muscle. Suffice to say they are equally as perplexing as the rest of the show's other strange nuances, not to mention they are a little scary looking.

But the problems here start long before the lights go down. Scenic designer Kate Edmunds' sterile living room set, dominated by long, white couches and throw rugs, looks like a page out of an IKEA furniture catalogue: tacky and a little blinding. The white-curtained backdrop later opens up to reveal a maze of steel scaffolding that looks like the underside of high school bleachers, which is where director Juliette Carrillo chooses to play some of the action. It's a weird decision, given that the peculiar setup has a tendency to upstage the actors.

While TheatreWorks has always strived to expose its audiences to different art forms and ideas, this latest production is more than a little over the top. The pity of all this, is that the actors are actually really quite good. It's impossible not to feel slightly embarrassed for them.

Stephanie Beatriz, as the spunky Brazilian maid who hates to clean, is one part standup comic, one part Energizer Bunny. Heather Ehlers as the super uptight doctor with the crumbling marriage, plays the part of the bitter wife with the same tenacity as Michael Cooke puts into his shallow husband act. Olivia Negron is the blithely naive "other woman." But it is Lucinda Hitchcock Cone's portrayal of the doctor's cleaning-obsessed sister that takes the prize. Her character is expressive and irrelevant and so absurdly inappropriate at times, you can't help but laugh.

Cone almost makes sitting through this show bearable -- but not quite. By the time the apple-throwing scene comes along, one can't help but wonder: Where are the tomatoes?
INFORMATION: What: TheatreWorks presents "The Clean House" by Sarah Ruhl Where: Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts, 500 Castro St. When: Tuesdays at 7:30 p.m.; Wednesdays through Fridays at 8 p.m.; Saturdays at 2 p.m. and 8 p.m.; 8 p.m. only Feb. 1; Sundays at 2 p.m. and 7 p.m.; 2 p.m. only Feb. 5 and 12; "Visual Voice" audio-described performances are available Feb. 10, 11 at 8 p.m. and Feb. 12 at 2 p.m.; show closes Feb. 12. Cost: $20-$52 Contact: (650) 903-6000 or visit www.theatreworks.org

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