Chicago Sun Times - Highly Recommended
"...In many ways, “The Clean House,” Ruhl’s exquisite play — now receiving a revelatory production by Remy Bumppo Theatre — is a perfect illustration of this philosophy of lightness. At moments laugh-out-loud funny, more often than not absurd yet wholly recognizable, and by the end, profound beyond all expectations, it possesses all the qualities of a helium balloon that can suddenly exert the most powerful gravitational pull."
Chicago Reader - Highly Recommended
"...What a difference a stage makes. I first saw Sarah Ruhl’s The Clean House in 2006, on the big proscenium at Goodman Theatre. It was indeed very clean, as I remember it, in the sense of exuding cool. Cool colors. Cool lines. Cool distances. A cool sort of deadpan whimsy. Not that it didn’t have vivid accents—a woman wearing a red dress, a man in a parka hauling the trunk of a huge tree from one place to another. But when I try to visualize that show now, I think mostly of isolated figures distributed across a spare modernist expanse, as in a model of some design by Mies van der Rohe. Grant Sabin’s set for the Remy Bumppo Theatre version of The Clean House is clean too: sleek and white, with strong horizontals and a really uncomfortable-looking couch that lacks a back, so that anyone using it is practically forced to maintain good posture."
Windy City Times - Highly Recommended
"...The actors, assembled by director Ann Filmer, arrive bearing extensive testimony to their expertise at conveying subtextual subtleties on the level of Stoppard and Pinter, but show themselves equally adept at allowing emotions to gush through the very pores of their characters' increasingly thin skins. Adults taking their first baby steps toward recognition of, acceptance of and, finally, defiance of cosmic absurdity can often appear ridiculous, but what better definition of "dying with dignity" can you imagine than choosing your own moment to, literally, have your last laugh?"
Stage and Cinema - Highly Recommended
"...This play thrives on contrasts that it lives to reconcile. We meet two Anglo sisters and two South American women, the former stereotypically obsessed with cleanliness and control, the latter romantics given to, well, life, love and laughter. A repressed self-cutter, Lane (the name is appropriately sexless) is a hubristic, type-A doctor (Patrice Egleston) married to another, Charles (Shawn Douglass), who seeks a soulmate who is not, alas, his wife. Lane’s sister Virginia (a delightfully dithering Annabel Armour) wants to make a difference in the world but, unlike Lane, it’s on a small-scale: She’s a compulsive cleaner (her own home by 3 p.m. and anyone else’s afterwards), an enemy to dust, and a mop’s best friend."
ChicagoCritic - Somewhat Recommended
"...That the play, which isn't long, struggles so much in the first act is partly because director Ann Filmer emphasized things that aren't uncontrollably funny in a world where you can die laughing. But it's mostly because Ruhl didn't provide it with enough action (see this article for what it's like to be her dramaturge). Still, the first act has some laughs, introduces the themes under discussion, and is short. Audience members who stick it out through intermission will find the story of acceptance and laughing in the face of loss the play promises, as long as they entered understanding Ruhl's anti-realist style to begin with. It's a style that demands a combination of literary sophistication and openness to direct emotional address while suspending emotional reasoning, but those who are willing to be warmed by it will be."
Around The Town Chicago - Highly Recommended
"...Sharply directed by Ann Filmer on a set that was designed to be very "white" (Grant Sabin) we find that the theater, one that is normally three sided, is now two and while they do lose some seats, it is understandable that the only way that The GreenHouse works is as they have designed this set- for the actors and the sight lines. The lighting(Charles Cooper), Costumes( Janice Pytel),Sound (Christopher Kriz) and props(Jesse Gaffney) are the icing on the cake along with some slick choreography by Mindy Meyers."
Chicago Theatre Review - Highly Recommended
"...Playful, whimsical, quirky and delightfully entertaining, Sara Ruhl’s romantic comedy is perfectly staged and brilliantly acted in Remy Bumppo’s engaging new production. Instead of sweeping away all of the dirt, this play shows how a little bit of dust can eliminate boredom and offer some grit, substance and fun to life. Too much order and cleanliness is sterile and uninteresting, but a little bit of dirt provides those memorable moments we treasure most."
Chicagoland Theater Reviews - Highly Recommended
"...For the brilliance of the Remy Bumppo staging, the audience must thank not only Sarah Ruhl but also the exemplary five-member ensemble guided with unfailing insight and taste by director Ann Filmer. There are so many ways the production could go wrong in dealing with the author’s highly personal and unconventional vision. The characters could come across as inane or stagey and the mood could shift uneasily between low comedy and maudlin emotion. In subtle ways, Ruhl’s play reminds me of Scott McPherson’s “Marvin’s Room,” another indelible blend of humor and tragedy."
The Fourth Walsh - Highly Recommended
"...I’m being deliberately vague on the relational dynamics within THE CLEAN HOUSE. This show is meant to be experienced. There is an understanding that you can’t be told, that you need to feel. It’s like gardening. We enjoy getting dirty in the process of nurturing things to grow. And we also enjoy scrubbing our hands free of that dirt. The pleasure in either activity is heightened when experienced together. THE CLEAN HOUSE goes both ways. This witty show is awash with emotional gleam and gunk. Below the surface is both beauty and despair. Experiencing the depth of the show will linger long after the dust settles. This show is more a must-feel than a must-see! Go!"
NewCity Chicago - Highly Recommended
"...Remy Bumppo’s production of Sarah Ruhl’s “The Clean House” is presented with a spotless understanding of the playwright’s sense of a compositional freedom of space and interval that invites the audience to set aside traditional, linear expectations and connect emotionally to the psychological storytelling."
