Life in a ‘Clean House’

Cinnabar Theater’s production of Sarah Ruhl’s comedy ‘The Clean House’ takes a look at American sociology and its multi-layered class system

Jeff Thomas Danielle Thys stars as Lane with Tim Kniffin as Charles in Cinnabar Theater’s production of Sarah Ruhl’s comedy “The Clean House.” The play runs through Sept. 22. Zoom Photo

THE CLEAN HOUSE Sarah Ruhl’s comedy about a physician with a cheating husband and a housekeeper who hates to clean. Location: Cinnabar Theater, 3333 Petaluma Blvd. North. Show times: 8 p.m. Sept. 7-8, 14-15, 20-22; and 2 p.m. Sept. 9, 16. Tickets: $22 general, $20 seniors and students. Information: 763-8920 or visit www.cinnabartheater.org.

Love is a monumental, messy element of life, no matter how pristine the house in which it lives! This revelation comes as no small surprise to an audience rapidly enthralled with the metaphysical connotations of “The Clean House,” a sleek and contemporary American stage comedy that opened the 35th Cinnabar Theater season to rousing applause last weekend.

Playwright Sarah Ruhl’s explosive and compassionate tale of mirth, fury, love and mortality is a striking study of modern American sociology and our multi-layered class system. Produced to widespread acclaim across the United States and Europe, this latest rendition at Cinnabar Theater should comfortably rank right up there with major metropolitan productions of this exuberant 2005 Pulitzer-shortlist play.

Picture an interior décor glossy spread from an East-Coast ideal home feature in Architect’s Digest or the like. You know the look: serene neutrals. When in doubt, linen/white. That sort of place. An accomplished doctor (Danielle Thys) returns home to her rather sterile, crisply appointed family room. Only without the family. Unless, of course, you count Lane’s lonely, isolated and professionally limited sister, Virginia (Laura Jorgensen), who’s apt to stop by to drool over her sibling’s apparent life success.

Right off the bat, Brazilian maid Matilde (Juliet Tanner) makes a monochromatic statement of the boldest variety on a “beige” interior landscape. With her jet black Brazilian braids, black, cotton tunic, matching Capri pants and ballet pumps, it’s patently clear we’re not looking at a stereotypical immigrant intent on surviving under the radar.

Anonymity is not Matilde’s motive for moving to America. And a career in domestic cleanliness is not on her A list, either. In fact, cleaning makes Matilde sad. And that’s a bit of a problem for a comedian who was by open admission: “the third funniest person in my family.” That was, until her parents died, leaving Matilde, as the subsequent first funniest in her family, little option but to pursue her dream of thinking up the perfect joke.

Confused? You bet. What’s a flabbergasted employer to do when faced with a depressed housekeeper? Fire her? Help her? Hang on a minute: “I don’t want an interesting person cleaning my house,” says Lane. “I just want an ordinary person.”

“The Clean House” opens up a can of middle-class worms and then some. Just as the audience adjusts to the idea of task-starved Virginia secretly stepping up to the plate in support of her newfound and refreshingly funny friend, Matilde, another spectacular predicament implodes this unconventional arrangement.

As Lane is busy discovering just how far her carefully planned life has begun to unfold, in walks her debonair doctor husband Charles (Tim Kniffin) with a sensational older lover (and also his hospital patient) — the luminous, Latin Ana (Linda Ayres-Frederick).

Ana’s bout with breast surgery (under the devoted glove of her doctor/lover) may be a trifle “too much information” for the body of material, but frequent interludes of imagined vignettes between Matilde’s late mother and father (Ayres-Frederick and Kniffin) make for a welcomed reprise.

Director Tara Blau takes a delirious, quirky and ultimately poignant look at life as so many know it today and turns it into something surreal and immeasurably thought-provoking. The talented Danielle Thys makes Lane her debut performance here at Cinnabar Theater, following a most recent production for the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in Scotland. Jorgensen, a long-time favorite with Cinnabar fans, shines as Virginia. Tanner’s Matilde is flawless and compelling, and the sensual double-act of Kniffin and Ayres-Frederick is a smoochy, sultry affair in each of two separate on-stage sets of clearly devoted soul-mates.

Cinnabar Theater’s production of “The Clean House” runs at Cinnabar Theater through Sept. 22. For show times and tickets, call 763-8920 or visit www.cinnabartheater.org.

(Contact Frances Rivetti at argus@arguscourier.com)