Reviewed by Marie J. Kilker
What do you do when you clean house? You dust, sweep, wash, iron, mop up dirt and marks, effecting neatness, newness. You throw out unfit, unneeded, unwanted, old things. You end one phase of life and begin another. In Sarah Ruhl's surreal-absurdist-realistic comedy, four women and a man clean their houses, real and symbolic.
The main real one, furnished in gleaming metal and white even to a box of tissues on the parlor coffee table, belongs to uptight, class-conscious Lane and husband Charles, both surgeons. Problem is, their young Brazilian maid, being devoted to concocting a perfect joke, hates to clean. Solution: Matilde will fulfill Lane's wishes and her own aspirations by delegating her work (on the sly, of course) to Lane's sister Virginia. For her, cleaning is both raison d'etre and ultimate pleasure. Further complication: Charles leaves Lane, after finding his true soul mate in performing a mastectomy on older but sensual Ana. Still, because his Argentinian love is dying of cancer, he quests after a possible, if far-to-be-fetched deterrent.
Like the surtitles that provide epic theater-type distance-often with silly jokes (especially when the script gets melodramatic), a "memento mori" often hangs over the characters' pursuit of perfection. Black-clad in mourning, Matilde tells how her father killed himself after his perfect joke caused his wife to die laughing. She insists love is more like a joke than happiness. Charles and Lane had met over a medical school anatomy dissection; he falls for Ana just after telling her of her cancer (that he doesn't want to let her die of). Matilde thinks Ana looks like her mother. Ana admits her alcoholic first husband died when, at her urging, he stopped drinking. Charles tries to find a way for him and Ana to communicate in the afterlife. Refusing to go to a hospital, Ana wants a relationship, not with disease but death. Yet the end describes a funny birth.
Music from lullabies to Mozart to dance is woven throughout, underscoring character and motifs. Bonding, the major theme, occurs not only in Charles and Ana's fated love. More importantly, the women mature and bond socially, shown as they move to the Portuguese pronunciation of Matilde's name, visit and share actual houses, get down and dirty and accept each other in new relationships. Director Douglas Jones orchestrates all with consummate skill. His grasp of Ruhl's unconventional style and his casting are impeccable.
Seva Anthony's stiff, mannered Lane, always in white, avoids cliché when she lets her black hair down. As Matilde, radiant blond Brazilian Karina Barros sings beautifully, gestures comically, and animates jokes in Portuguese so well that anyone can grasp their mood. Geraldine Librandi, even in ecstasy over sorting laundry or dusting, creates a wonderfully tender Virginia. With a well-tuned accent, as well as singing and dancing talent, Ann Morrison portrays Ana as sultry yet anything but superficial. If anyone were ever an offbeat lover, it is Robert Herrle's Charles, a cross between a Dr. Kildare or Casey and a teddy bear. Morrison and Herrle also double ably as Matilde's remembered parents.
James A. Florek's bright lit-and-furnished house contrasts well with the nondescript balcony of Ana's seaside apartment under deep blue sky. Nice touches include Jaye Annette Sheldon's colorful costumes for all but Lane and Matilde, with stage crews in surgical scrubs. Steve Lemke's sound design brings in the music meaningfully. Readable legends appear without a hitch on a white screen over the stage. With this production, Banyan Theater Company again makes it hard to wait until next summer for more exceptional plays and performances.
Producer: Jerry Finn; Technical Director: Tim O'Donnell; Production Stage Manager: Jon Merlyn. Time: 2 hrs. with 15 min. intermission.