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Regional Reviews: San Francisco Clean House Also see Patrick's review of Mary Poppins
Lane and her husband Charles are both doctors, too busy at the hospital to keep the entropy in their home at bay. Mathilde, however, doesn't like cleaning. At least not other people's houses. It depresses her. So she doesn't do it, spending her days instead meditating on the perfect joke. The one that will absolutely slay them when she moves to New York to be a comedian. (Which is ironic, given Mathilde's mother apparently literally died laughing.) So when Lane's older sister Virginia—who loves to clean—offers an unorthodox shared solution to their individual problems, Mathilde naturally jumps at it. Unfortunately, playwright Sarah Ruhl and the Ross Valley Players can't fight entropy, either. Which is tragic, because the first act of The Clean House is fantastic. It begins brilliantly, with Mathilde (Livia Demarchi) telling us a joke. In Portuguese. (Which, based on my minimal Latin-rooted language skills and Demarchi's pantomimes of the action, is a variant of a crude number I remember a strange scoutmaster telling us boys on a camping trip, whose punch line is "Ah, hell with it - quarterquarterquarter!!!") Demarchi's charm and comfort are vividly evident and she is instantly a character we want to spend time with. Then Lane appears. Also played with great skill and subtlety by Sylvia Burboeck. She and Demarchi have a wonderful chemistry, their timing is terrific and the laughs from the audience come naturally and freely. Wait—it gets better. When Virginia, Lane's slightly priggish older sister, appears, Tamar Cohn's portrayal of Virginia's sugar-coated anxiety is absolutely delightful. And the text is wonderful, rocketing along with funny and insightful lines in all the right places, playing with rhythm and language and culture and expectations. My only real problem in act one is the action that takes place in a large square niche upstage, where Mathilde's memories of her parents (the two funniest people in Brazil) are played out by Steve Price and Sumi Narendran. I thought their pantomiming too broad, lacking the tenderness and grace the memories being called up required. But this is minor, and I anxiously awaited act two. But in that anticipate second act, it all seems to drift into disarray. Ruhl's play goes off into too many directions and seems to end more than once, making the action that is so energetic and swift in act one feel bogged down and unguided. In addition, Steve Price, who was so wonderful in the Ross Valley Players' Harvey last year, is badly miscast in this role. And somewhere along the way, the timing and focus the rest of the cast previously had dissipates and with it the energy within the audience. Though the set design is rather ordinary, costumes (by Michael A. Berg) are perfect, helping reinforce the characters' natures and roles. Despite all that, the quality of the first act is enough to save this production, as you will likely be so involved with the characters you meet in act one, that you'll probably be able to overlook—or at least forgive—the weaknesses of act two. The Clean House plays Thursdays-Sundays through June 14, 2015, at the Barn Theatre, located in the Marin Art and Garden Center, 30 Sir Francis Drake Blvd., Ross. Performances are Thursdays at 7:30 p.m., Fridays and Saturdays at 8:00 p.m. and Sundays at 2:00 p.m. Weekend ticket prices are $29 general admission, $25 for seniors (62+) and $14 for children under 18 and students with valid high school or college ID. Thursday night tickets are $23 for adults and $14 for children and students with valid ID. Tickets can be ordered by calling 415-456-9555, ext. 1 or visiting www.rossvalleyplayers.com.
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