What a mess. What a glorious, funny, delicious mess.
There's really no other way to describe the emotions that rule Sarah Ruhl's "The Clean House," which Arizona Theatre Company opened Friday.
It's about the beauty, and the chaos, of life, love, death, laughter.
The ATC production, directed with humor and grace by Jon Jory, is a tight, smooth one with a cast that embraced the quirky nuances of Ruhl's characters.
Even with its obvious metaphors and step-back-and-grasp-the-meaning gestures, this play is a pure delight.
Among those obvious ones: The pristine, all-white home of Lane and her husband, Charles (Neil Patel is responsible for the terrific set design). Lane (perfectly rendered by Felicity La Fortune) dresses in all white, too. She is repressed beyond measure, controlling to the point of being out of control.
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"I'm sorry, but I did not go to medical school to clean house," she says through tight lips early in the play.
Unfortunately for her, she has hired a live-in maid, Matilde, who would much rather tell a good joke than clean. She is the emotional opposite of Lane.
Alexandra Tavares' Matilde is a joyful hoot who tells jokes in Portuguese and still manages to make an audience that largely doesn't understand a word she said laugh. Matilde hails from Brazil, wears black, and is mourning for her mother, who died laughing, and her father, who shot himself when his wife died.
Wearing shades between the two is Virginia, Lane's sister. She is repressed in a different way than Lane. She loves to clean — that's how she makes order of her unhappy life.
Kate Goehring's Virginia was at once heartbreaking and hysterical.
And when she finally allows her anger to show, she acts out, with great abandon, a fantasy we bet most frustrated housewives have.
No doubt there will be lots of vicarious living with that scene.
Lane's husband, Charles, has fallen instantly and deeply in love with a patient, Ana, an older woman from Argentina (glamorously, tenderly portrayed by Bernard Burak Sheredy and Rae C Wright). Uh-oh, things are spiraling out of everyone's control. It gets mighty messy.
But oh, what a joyous mess. Ruhl's script is full of compassion, beautifully realized characters, and some emotional roller coasting that is gentle enough to avoid whiplash, but fierce enough to bring you from tears to laughter within just a few lines.
And this ATC production does it justice.
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Performances of the "Clean House" are 2 and 7 p.m. today; 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Thursday and Friday; 2 and 7 p.m. Wednesday; 4 and 8 p.m. Saturday, and 2 p.m. next Sunday at the Temple of Music and Art, 330 S. Scott Ave. Tickets are $26-$50 at 622-2823. Performances continue through April 26.
