The Sopris Sun Review
By Trina Ortega

Thunder River Theatre Company’s current onstage production, “The Clean House,” opens with a Brazilian maid telling a joke in Portuguese. If not cast well, the beginning might disengage or even estrange the audience. But actor Maureen Jackson achieves the opposite by performing the opening scene with dynamism and flair and immediately draws us to love her character, Matilde.

Jackson is one of four actors debuting with TRTC in “The Clean House,” which is directed by TRTC resident member Sue Lavin (“The Complete History of America, abridged,” “Quilters” and “Eleemosynary”).

Although new to the TRTC stage, these cast members have a variety of acting experience, and their performances — along with Lavin’s thoughtful direction and an intentionally sterile set — rise to the challenge of playwright Sarah Ruhl’s complex and theatrically imaginative play, which was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 2005.

For instance, Jackson, with her lyrical Portuguese words, the sway of her hips and the sassy tilt of her head, captivates the audience instantly, making them feel as though they know exactly what she is saying. We hang onto every foreign word until the punchline is delivered.

As with many elements in Ruhl’s “The Clean House,” the importance is not in knowing exactly what Matilde’s jokes are (although it’d be fun to hear them) or understanding the beautiful “Don Giovanni” opera (sung effortlessly by Lee Sullivan and Charisse Layne). It is about the “healing” that the characters experience in order to survive the tragic times in their lives, Lavin says. It is in the emotion of the characters as they remember their loved ones or as they listen to the funny jokes.

“The Clean House” is about a doctor, Lane (played flawlessly by Eileen Seeley). Busy with her profession, Lane hires Matilde, who bills herself as a Brazilian maid but actually hates to clean. In fact, Matilde has moved to the United States in a state of depression after her parents’ dying. She aspires to be a comedian and is in constant search of the perfect joke — a joke that could make you die laughing.

Meanwhile, Lane’s sister is the obsessive-compulsive Virginia (played by Janice Estey), who loves to clean up messes. Even historical Greek ruins are a blight on the world in Virginia’s mind. But what Virginia loves most is to clean up after her sister, and ends up striking a deal with Matilde to keep Lane’s house spotless.

But there is no cleaning that can keep Lane’s marriage to fellow doctor Charles (Sullivan) tidy. He falls for one of his patients, the carefree and courageous Ana (Layne). Lavin serves justice to Ruhl’s creative theatrical concepts and doesn’t stumble in portraying the playwright’s twisting of time and space. In the second act, one scene begins with two characters talking on an outdoor balcony while a second scene simultaneously unfolds on center stage, in Lane’s living room. Props are cleverly “shared” between the two scenes, and the audience may barely notice that Charles has thrown his shirt from the balcony only to be immediately picked up (in longing) by Lane in her high-rise apartment. Rather than stumbling on this gap in time and geographical distance, it makes sense and we appreciate it.

“This wakefulness required of a Ruhl audience is less a challenge than an opportunity to share in a unique aesthetic that pulls us up one moment to the loftiness of love and pushes us down the next to examine the dust on the table,” Lavin states.