The Clean House
Encyclopedia
The Clean House is a play by Sarah Ruhl
, which premiered in 2004 at Yale Repertory Theatre
and has since been produced in many American cities. The play is a whimsical romantic comedy centered on Matilde, a Brazil
ian cleaning woman who would rather be a comedian.
The play then begins with Lane and Matilde still trying to work out their situation, especially since Lane feels uncomfortable having to order Matilde around and Matilde does not seem to be cleaning. While Lane is at work, Virginia, Lane's sister, a housewife and obsessive cleaner, comes to visit Matilde, having heard she was sad. Matilde explains that she doesn't like to clean and Virginia offers to clean the house for her before Lane comes home from the hospital.
Soon after, Matilde and Virginia discover panties in Lane's laundry that look too sexy for her and begin suspecting her husband Charles, also a doctor, is cheating on her. Their suspicions are confirmed when Lane tells them that Charles has left her for an older woman named Ana, a patient of his who had breast cancer and is now recovering from a mastectomy. Lane discovers that her sister had been cleaning the house instead of the maid. Lane, already upset, fires Matilde. Right before Matilde's departure, the maid sees Lane's imagined idea of Charles and his lover. She tries to tell Lane a joke, but as it is in Portuguese, Lane can't understand it. She tries to laugh, but just ends up crying. Virginia then enters to tell the two that Charles and the woman he loves is at the door. The act ends with Charles calling to Lane from offstage.
The second act begins with Ana, a free-spirited Argentine, and Charles, who are the same actors who have been playing Matilde's parents during act 1. Charles performs surgery on Ana and then they act out the scene where they meet for the first time and fall in love in a matter of moments. The play then deposits the characters back to where act 1 ended, as Ana and Charles are let into the house awkwardly. Ana and Matilde bond immediately. Charles tells Lane that Ana is his Bashert (soul mate) and that, according to Jewish law, this means that their marriage is dissolved. Lane doesn't know how to react, though she is clearly upset and bitter about the turn of events. Ana, after learning Matilde was just fired by Lane, offers for Matilde to come and clean their house. Lane, taking her aggression out on Ana, argues that she relies on Matilde and couldn't bear to part with her. Matilde, now being fought over by the two women, decides to split her time between both of their houses. Charles, Ana, and Matilde leave to go apple picking.
Matilde and Ana converse in their respective languages on Ana's balcony, eating apples and throwing them into the 'sea,' which also happens to be Lane's living room. Meanwhile, back at Lane's house, she and her sister fight, with Lane taking out her frustration over the situation on Virginia's obsessive cleaning.
Ana and Charles fight over her going back to the hospital. Charles wants her to fight her cancer more aggressively, with Ana refusing to subject herself to more hospitals. Matilde watches as the two react to Ana's illness in their separate ways. While standing alone on Ana's balcony, Matilde discovers her 'perfect joke' and realizes that it did not kill her after all.
Soon, Matilde arrives back at Lane's home with news that Ana's cancer has come back and that she refuses to go to a hospital. She tells them that Charles, frantic for his lover's health, has gone to Alaska to cut down a Yew tree, which supposedly has healing powers. Matilde manages to convince Lane to visit Ana in a medical capacity. While at Ana's home, Lane examines Ana with an air of coldness before breaking down and yelling at her for making Charles love her in a way he never loved Lane. The two women share a moment, and Lane manages to forgive Ana.
Lane allows Ana to move in with her while Charles is away. As time passes, Charles sends a telegram, telling Ana that he has found a tree, but cannot get it onto a plane. He asks her to wait as he learns to fly a plane himself. Ana's condition, however, quickly worsens, and unwilling to have cancer beat her, she asks Matilde to kill her with a joke. Matilde reluctantly agrees. The next morning, she tells Ana her perfect joke. As Matilde whispers in Ana's ear, beautiful music plays over the audience and Ana laughs until she dies in Matilde's arms. Matilde sobs, and upon hearing the noise, Lane and Virginia come back into the room. Virginia says a prayer over the body. It is here that Charles returns with his tree. Lane meets him at the door, where she lets him know what happened and forgives him. He hands her the tree as he goes to approach the body.
Matilde ends the play imagining her mother laughing as she gave birth to her. Ana and Charles transform back into her parents and there is a moment of completion between the three of them. Matilde has come full circle with her parents, from death back to birth, finding finality and closure in the moment.
The last line of the play is Matilde's as she tells the audience:
"I think heaven is a sea of untranslatable jokes, except everyone is laughing"
, awarded annually to the best English-language play written by a woman, and was a Pulitzer Prize
finalist. It has received glowing reviews from certain critics: Variety
called the play a “…wondrously mad and moving work…” and Charles Isherwood of The New York Times
dubbed it a deeply romantic comedy, “…visionary, tinged with fantasy, extravagant in feeling, maybe a little nuts.” Peter Marks, reviewing the Woolly Mammoth Theatre production, wrote: "As with most original voices, it takes a while to tune into Ruhl's wavelength. Once connected, though, you commune warmly with her funny and compassionate sense of life's metamorphosing rewards and punishments." Other publications, such as The Village Voice
and The New Yorker
were more critical, registering complaints about the play's style and its treatment of Matilde. At the end of 2006, Entertainment Weekly
magazine named the New York production one of the top ten theatrical attractions of the year.
(West Coast premiere, January 2005), the Goodman Theatre
(spring 2006, in Ruhl's native Chicago), Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company
, Washington, D.C. (July 11 — August 14, 2005) , Lincoln Center Theater at the Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater (New York premiere, October 2006), Crucible Theatre
, Sheffield, England (April 2006, European Premiere) and at Northampton's Royal & Derngate theatres (Feb 08 then UK tour).
The Sheffield production featured Patricia Hodge
(Lane) and Eleanor Bron
(Ana/Mathilde's mother). It was directed by Samuel West
. Both actors revive these roles for Northampton and UK tour, directed by John Dove.
The Lincoln Center production featured Blair Brown
(Lane), Jill Clayburgh
(Virginia), John Dossett
(Charles/Mathilde's father), Concetta Tomei
(Ana/Mathilde's mother), and Vanessa Aspillaga (Mathilde).
The play has been produced at many regional theaters in the United States, including the Barksdale Theatre in Richmond
, Virginia
(2008) and Portland Stage Company, Portland
, Oregon
(2009).
Most recently, it was produced at Stephens
College .
Other international productions include: The Marlowe Theatre in Canterbury
(2008); the Espace Libre theatre (Montreal
) in French (2008); Circa Theatre, Wellington
, New Zealand (2009).
Sarah Ruhl
Sarah Ruhl is an American playwright. She is the recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship.-Biography:Ruhl was born in Wilmette, Illinois. Originally, she intended to be a poet. However, after she studied under Paula Vogel at Brown University , she was convinced to switch to playwrighting...
, which premiered in 2004 at Yale Repertory Theatre
Yale Repertory Theatre
The Yale Repertory Theatre at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut was founded by Robert Brustein, dean of the Yale School of Drama in 1966, with the goal of facilitating a meaningful collaboration between theatre professionals and talented students. In the process it has become one of the...
and has since been produced in many American cities. The play is a whimsical romantic comedy centered on Matilde, a Brazil
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
ian cleaning woman who would rather be a comedian.
Plot summary
The play opens with three characters coming out to address the audience. Matilde comes out first, telling an elaborate joke in Portuguese without translation. Next Lane, a doctor in her 50s, come out to explain that her maid from Brazil has been failing to clean her house and so she had her medicated. She is followed by Virginia, Lane's older sister, who argues that people who do not clean their own homes are insane. Matilde finally comes back on stage to tell the audience, this time in English, about how her parents, both wonderful comedians, recently died. Not knowing what to do with herself after, Matilde came to America to clean this house.The play then begins with Lane and Matilde still trying to work out their situation, especially since Lane feels uncomfortable having to order Matilde around and Matilde does not seem to be cleaning. While Lane is at work, Virginia, Lane's sister, a housewife and obsessive cleaner, comes to visit Matilde, having heard she was sad. Matilde explains that she doesn't like to clean and Virginia offers to clean the house for her before Lane comes home from the hospital.
Soon after, Matilde and Virginia discover panties in Lane's laundry that look too sexy for her and begin suspecting her husband Charles, also a doctor, is cheating on her. Their suspicions are confirmed when Lane tells them that Charles has left her for an older woman named Ana, a patient of his who had breast cancer and is now recovering from a mastectomy. Lane discovers that her sister had been cleaning the house instead of the maid. Lane, already upset, fires Matilde. Right before Matilde's departure, the maid sees Lane's imagined idea of Charles and his lover. She tries to tell Lane a joke, but as it is in Portuguese, Lane can't understand it. She tries to laugh, but just ends up crying. Virginia then enters to tell the two that Charles and the woman he loves is at the door. The act ends with Charles calling to Lane from offstage.
The second act begins with Ana, a free-spirited Argentine, and Charles, who are the same actors who have been playing Matilde's parents during act 1. Charles performs surgery on Ana and then they act out the scene where they meet for the first time and fall in love in a matter of moments. The play then deposits the characters back to where act 1 ended, as Ana and Charles are let into the house awkwardly. Ana and Matilde bond immediately. Charles tells Lane that Ana is his Bashert (soul mate) and that, according to Jewish law, this means that their marriage is dissolved. Lane doesn't know how to react, though she is clearly upset and bitter about the turn of events. Ana, after learning Matilde was just fired by Lane, offers for Matilde to come and clean their house. Lane, taking her aggression out on Ana, argues that she relies on Matilde and couldn't bear to part with her. Matilde, now being fought over by the two women, decides to split her time between both of their houses. Charles, Ana, and Matilde leave to go apple picking.
Matilde and Ana converse in their respective languages on Ana's balcony, eating apples and throwing them into the 'sea,' which also happens to be Lane's living room. Meanwhile, back at Lane's house, she and her sister fight, with Lane taking out her frustration over the situation on Virginia's obsessive cleaning.
Ana and Charles fight over her going back to the hospital. Charles wants her to fight her cancer more aggressively, with Ana refusing to subject herself to more hospitals. Matilde watches as the two react to Ana's illness in their separate ways. While standing alone on Ana's balcony, Matilde discovers her 'perfect joke' and realizes that it did not kill her after all.
Soon, Matilde arrives back at Lane's home with news that Ana's cancer has come back and that she refuses to go to a hospital. She tells them that Charles, frantic for his lover's health, has gone to Alaska to cut down a Yew tree, which supposedly has healing powers. Matilde manages to convince Lane to visit Ana in a medical capacity. While at Ana's home, Lane examines Ana with an air of coldness before breaking down and yelling at her for making Charles love her in a way he never loved Lane. The two women share a moment, and Lane manages to forgive Ana.
Lane allows Ana to move in with her while Charles is away. As time passes, Charles sends a telegram, telling Ana that he has found a tree, but cannot get it onto a plane. He asks her to wait as he learns to fly a plane himself. Ana's condition, however, quickly worsens, and unwilling to have cancer beat her, she asks Matilde to kill her with a joke. Matilde reluctantly agrees. The next morning, she tells Ana her perfect joke. As Matilde whispers in Ana's ear, beautiful music plays over the audience and Ana laughs until she dies in Matilde's arms. Matilde sobs, and upon hearing the noise, Lane and Virginia come back into the room. Virginia says a prayer over the body. It is here that Charles returns with his tree. Lane meets him at the door, where she lets him know what happened and forgives him. He hands her the tree as he goes to approach the body.
Matilde ends the play imagining her mother laughing as she gave birth to her. Ana and Charles transform back into her parents and there is a moment of completion between the three of them. Matilde has come full circle with her parents, from death back to birth, finding finality and closure in the moment.
The last line of the play is Matilde's as she tells the audience:
"I think heaven is a sea of untranslatable jokes, except everyone is laughing"
Reviews
The Clean House won the 2004 Susan Smith Blackburn PrizeSusan Smith Blackburn Prize
The Susan Smith Blackburn Prize established in 1978, is for English-language women playwrights. Named for Susan Smith, alumna of Smith College, who died of breast cancer.-Winners:* 1978-79 Mary O'Malley* 1979-80 Barbara Schneider...
, awarded annually to the best English-language play written by a woman, and was a Pulitzer Prize
Pulitzer Prize
The Pulitzer Prize is a U.S. award for achievements in newspaper and online journalism, literature and musical composition. It was established by American publisher Joseph Pulitzer and is administered by Columbia University in New York City...
finalist. It has received glowing reviews from certain critics: Variety
Variety (magazine)
Variety is an American weekly entertainment-trade magazine founded in New York City, New York, in 1905 by Sime Silverman. With the rise of the importance of the motion-picture industry, Daily Variety, a daily edition based in Los Angeles, California, was founded by Silverman in 1933. In 1998, the...
called the play a “…wondrously mad and moving work…” and Charles Isherwood of The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
dubbed it a deeply romantic comedy, “…visionary, tinged with fantasy, extravagant in feeling, maybe a little nuts.” Peter Marks, reviewing the Woolly Mammoth Theatre production, wrote: "As with most original voices, it takes a while to tune into Ruhl's wavelength. Once connected, though, you commune warmly with her funny and compassionate sense of life's metamorphosing rewards and punishments." Other publications, such as The Village Voice
The Village Voice
The Village Voice is a free weekly newspaper and news and features website in New York City that features investigative articles, analysis of current affairs and culture, arts and music coverage, and events listings for New York City...
and The New Yorker
The New Yorker
The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
were more critical, registering complaints about the play's style and its treatment of Matilde. At the end of 2006, Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly is an American magazine, published by the Time division of Time Warner, that covers film, television, music, broadway theatre, books and popular culture...
magazine named the New York production one of the top ten theatrical attractions of the year.
Production history
"The Clean House" has been produced at South Coast RepertorySouth Coast Repertory
South Coast Repertory is a professional theatre company located in Costa Mesa, California.Tony Award-winning South Coast Repertory, founded in 1964 by David Emmes and Martin Benson and now under the leadership of Artistic Director Marc Masterson and Managing Director Paula Tomei, is widely...
(West Coast premiere, January 2005), the Goodman Theatre
Goodman Theatre
The Goodman Theatre is a professional theater company located in Chicago's Loop. A major part of Chicago theatre, it is the city's oldest currently active nonprofit theater organization...
(spring 2006, in Ruhl's native Chicago), Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company
Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company
Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company is a non-profit theatre company located at 641 D Street NW in the Penn Quarter neighborhood of Washington, D.C. It produces new plays which it believes to be edgy, challenging, and thought-provoking...
, Washington, D.C. (July 11 — August 14, 2005) , Lincoln Center Theater at the Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater (New York premiere, October 2006), Crucible Theatre
Crucible Theatre
The Crucible Theatre is a theatre built in 1971 and located in the city centre of Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England. As well as theatrical performances, it is home to the most important event in professional snooker, the World Snooker Championship....
, Sheffield, England (April 2006, European Premiere) and at Northampton's Royal & Derngate theatres (Feb 08 then UK tour).
The Sheffield production featured Patricia Hodge
Patricia Hodge
Patricia Ann Hodge is an English actor.-Early life:The daughter of the Royal Hotel owner/manager Eric and his wife Marion , Hodge attended Wintringham Girls' Grammar School on Weelsby Avenue in Grimsby and then St...
(Lane) and Eleanor Bron
Eleanor Bron
Eleanor Bron is an English stage, film and television actress and author.-Early life and family:Bron was born in 1938 in Stanmore, Middlesex, to a Jewish family of Eastern European origin...
(Ana/Mathilde's mother). It was directed by Samuel West
Samuel West
Samuel Alexander Joseph West is an English actor and theatre director. He is perhaps best known for his role in Howards End and his work on stage. He also starred in the award-winning play ENRON...
. Both actors revive these roles for Northampton and UK tour, directed by John Dove.
The Lincoln Center production featured Blair Brown
Blair Brown
Bonnie Blair Brown is an American theater, film, and television actress. She has had a number of high profile roles, including a Tony Award-winning turn in the play Copenhagen on Broadway, as well as a run as the title character in the television comedy-drama The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd,...
(Lane), Jill Clayburgh
Jill Clayburgh
Jill Clayburgh was an American actress. She received Academy Award nominations for her roles in An Unmarried Woman and Starting Over.-Personal life:...
(Virginia), John Dossett
John Dossett
John Dossett is an American actor and singer.-Early life and education:Dossett attended Mount Pleasant High School in Wilmington, Delaware from 1972 through 1976, where he was an announcer for the school's radio station, WMPH, and appeared in student theater productions.-Career:Dossett made his...
(Charles/Mathilde's father), Concetta Tomei
Concetta Tomei
Concetta Tomei is an American theatre, film and television character actress, best known for her roles as Maj. Lila Garreau on the ABC series China Beach and as Lynda Hansen on the NBC series Providence ....
(Ana/Mathilde's mother), and Vanessa Aspillaga (Mathilde).
The play has been produced at many regional theaters in the United States, including the Barksdale Theatre in Richmond
Richmond, Virginia
Richmond is the capital of the Commonwealth of Virginia, in the United States. It is an independent city and not part of any county. Richmond is the center of the Richmond Metropolitan Statistical Area and the Greater Richmond area...
, Virginia
Virginia
The Commonwealth of Virginia , is a U.S. state on the Atlantic Coast of the Southern United States. Virginia is nicknamed the "Old Dominion" and sometimes the "Mother of Presidents" after the eight U.S. presidents born there...
(2008) and Portland Stage Company, Portland
Portland, Oregon
Portland is a city located in the Pacific Northwest, near the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers in the U.S. state of Oregon. As of the 2010 Census, it had a population of 583,776, making it the 29th most populous city in the United States...
, Oregon
Oregon
Oregon is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It is located on the Pacific coast, with Washington to the north, California to the south, Nevada on the southeast and Idaho to the east. The Columbia and Snake rivers delineate much of Oregon's northern and eastern...
(2009).
Most recently, it was produced at Stephens
College .
Other international productions include: The Marlowe Theatre in Canterbury
Canterbury
Canterbury is a historic English cathedral city, which lies at the heart of the City of Canterbury, a district of Kent in South East England. It lies on the River Stour....
(2008); the Espace Libre theatre (Montreal
Montreal
Montreal is a city in Canada. It is the largest city in the province of Quebec, the second-largest city in Canada and the seventh largest in North America...
) in French (2008); Circa Theatre, Wellington
Wellington
Wellington is the capital city and third most populous urban area of New Zealand, although it is likely to have surpassed Christchurch due to the exodus following the Canterbury Earthquake. It is at the southwestern tip of the North Island, between Cook Strait and the Rimutaka Range...
, New Zealand (2009).
External links
- Variety Review
- The Clean House at South Coast RepertorySouth Coast RepertorySouth Coast Repertory is a professional theatre company located in Costa Mesa, California.Tony Award-winning South Coast Repertory, founded in 1964 by David Emmes and Martin Benson and now under the leadership of Artistic Director Marc Masterson and Managing Director Paula Tomei, is widely...
- The New Yorker review
- Village Voice review
- Lortel listing