The Clean House
ACT, 2007
Written by Sarah Ruhl
Scenery by Matthew Smucker
Lights by Michael Wellborn
Costumes by Frances Kenny
Sound by Dominic Cody Kramers
At ACT, the play gets a splendid in-the-round staging from Allison Narver and a crew of agile actors who fully, pungently embrace its eccentric characters, aphoristic wit and whimsical affirmations.
Ruhl is a genuinely poetic writer, who can really turn a phrase. (A favorite: “The difference between inspired medicine and uninspired medicine is love.”) And she wants you to truly feel for these people as they cope with grief and passion, hurt and dirt.
Narver and company work hard and smart to make it happen, and the in-the-round intimacy of ACT’s Allen Theatre helps.
For Matilde’s rhapsodic memories of her fun-loving late parents (Fitzpatrick and Lauris, playing dual roles) and several scenes set on Ana’s seaside balcony, scenic designer Matthew Smucker has provided a graceful overhead bridge.
Ana and Matilde have a hilarious time tossing half-eaten apples off that balcony, an invigorating scene staged with great physicality by Narver (who is maturing into one of Seattle’s best stage directors).
There could hardly be a more delightfully quirky show to start off ACT Theatre's fall season than playwright Sarah Ruhl's The Clean House. Directed with invention, relish and pizazz by Alison Narver (former artistic director of the not long deceased and sorely missed Empty Space), The Clean House is not a show you want to give away the secrets of in a review, so there will not be many, if any, spoilers here.
Suffice to say the play gains in richness as its plot grows more fantastical, and Narver's rich direction and incredibly happy casting make it the play that it should be.