The Clean House, a play by Sarah Ruhl, Lincoln Center Theater at the Mitzi E. Newhouse.
If there is another talent in the theater as quirky, original and yet so emotionally true and deep with understanding of the human condition as Sarah Ruhl, I'm not aware of it. Sarah Ruhl, so young, so brilliant, bids fair to take American theater to heights not reached since the days of Eugene O'Neill. Talk about a A Bridge and Tunnel Test, we first encountered Sara Ruhl's singular genius when we made the 3 1/2 hour trip from Princeton to New Haven to see her highly priased riff on the Orfeo legend: "Eurydice." We were not disappointed, it was a play worth any journey, no matter how arduous. "Eurydice" was altogether sublime and we unashamedly cried our hearts out in the Yale Repertory Theatre when Eurydice laid her head on her father's lap. Could lightening strike twice with "The Clean House"? Yes indeed.
"The Clean House" is given a starry production at Lincoln Center with two marvelous veterans leading the way: Blair Brown and Jill Clayburgh. "The Clean House" is if anything, quirkier and a little more difficult to enter into than "Eurydice." But by the end of this play in which the despoiling of a perfect white room is a metaphor for the messiness of human life, we were totally entranced. The cast was note perfect, along with the two stars above, Vanessa Aspillaga is ideal as the maid who hates to clean and Concetta Tomei radiant in two parts that make a whole. This lovely crazy play which should have won the 2005 Pulitzer passes the Bridge and Tunnel Test with an A+ I daresay it is one of the theatrical events of the year.