Harvey by Mary Chase, Zach Theatre, Topfer Theatre, May 15 - June 16, 2013

Martin Burke (image: Kirk R. Tuck)

by Christine Mendez


Harvey by Mary Chase at the Zach Theatre, directed by Dave Steakley, is a laughter-inducing good time. It centers around Elwood P. Dowd , a charming, generous and altogether very pleasant man who happens to have an invisible six-foot rabbit named Harvey as his best friend. 

 Martin Burke’s comic performance is flawless, once again. His subtle gestures and affably earnest conversations with Harvey have you almost seeing the giant white rabbit yourself! Burke portrays Elwood’s genuinely friendly without out a single false note.

Elwood’s sister (Lauren Lane) and her daughter Myrtle Mae (Erin Barlow) have spent years of hiding the invisible and unseemly Harvey from society, and they decide the time has come to commit Elwood to a sanitarium. A mix-up confines the wrong person, and a happily unaware Elwood continues on his pleasant way with a smile in place.

Lauren Lane (image: Kirk R. Tuck)

Lane and Barlow as mother and daughter duo have you feeling the shame and hilarity of the situation simultaneously. Lauren Lane’s predicaments had the audience laughing all evening long – so much so that at times one had to strain to hear the dialogue. A week of preview performances should have been sufficient to adjust the timing – but perhaps the audience for the official opening night was particularly exuberant. I wished the ladies would have another beat before delivering their lines, but they definitely succeeded in keeping us amused.

Liz Beckham, Martin Burke, Jacob Trussell (image: Kirk R.Tuck)

Elwood’s gentle courtesy makes Nurse Kelly (Liz Beckham) feel appreciated and cherished even when the man she has her eyes set on, Dr. Sanderson (Jacob Trussell), treats her poorly. Elwood’s unwavering chivalry is refreshing, disarming and disconcerting to the other characters.

The Pulitzer-Prize-winning play from 1945, familiar to many from the Jimmy Stewart movie, poses a still relevant question about delusions, social propriety and responsibility. Is it right to lock up a friendly, generous and good-natured man who is harmlessly out of contact with reality as we conceive it? What’s the danger to us if he imagines he has a giant invisible rabbit as companion and best friend? People reject behavior they do not understand, so they instinctively move to counter it and exclude Elwood, even though he’s charismatic and kind.

Harvey the rabbit remains invisible, but his presence is palpable and apparent in the set design by Michelle Ney. Rabbit figures are to be found littered throughout the set. I was pleasantly surprised to detect a few rabbits in portraits on the walls of the sets, and I spent much of the intermission trying to find them all. The revolving stage was a quick and fun way to change between the two sets. The contrast between the warm library and the cold, almost empty environment of the sanitarium was stark – but it had no effect on the effervescent Elwood.

I recommend that you hop over to Zach Theatre to catch this performance of Harvey before he disappears!

HARVEY by Mary Chase, Zach Theatre, May 15 - June 16, 2013

(Zach Theatre, S. Lamar at Riverside (parking on Riverside and on Toomey Rd, one block south),


HARVEY

by MARY CHASE
directed by DAVE STEAKLEY
featuring MARTIN BURKE and LAUREN LANE

Previews May 15-22 - Champagne Opening and Press Night is Thursday, May 23 at 7:30 p.m., followed by a reception with the stars of show.

LGBT Wilde Party with pre-show mixer is Thursday, May 16. 

Performances continue Wednesdays - Saturdays at 8 p.m., and Sunday at 2:30 p.m. through June 16, 2013.

To order tickets call 512-476-0541 ext. 1 or visit www.zachtheatre.org. Tickets range from $25-$65. 
Student Rush Tickets: $18 one hour before showtime (with valid ID).

 ZACH’s full bar featuring signature cocktails and hors d'oeuvre boxes opens one hour prior to showtime and remains open for one hour post-show.


at ZACH’s new Topfer Theatre, 202 South Lamar Blvd., (corner of Riverside Drive and South Lamar Blvd.)

In this 1945-Pulitzer Prize-winning comedy "Austin's favorite actor" (The Austin Chronicle), Martin Burke stars as Elwood P. Dowd, a happy-go-lucky chap with a kind word for everyone he meets, especially his invisible best friend, a six-foot tall rabbit named "Harvey." When Elwood's social-climbing sister decides to have him committed, this delightful play embarks on a madcap discovery that is by turns hilarious and endearing. Maybe our dreams are more important than we ever imagined.


ZACH’s Producing Artistic Director Dave Steakley says: “Martin Burke and the role of Elwood in HARVEY is a marriage made in heaven. Martin’s charm, ability to make us see Harvey as a fully-realized ‘pooka’, and gift for comedy will be a large amount of fun for all of us. Martin is joined by actress Lauren Lane, who is such a gifted interpreter of physical comedy, which makes her a natural for this project. This Pulitzer Prize-winning play by Mary Chase, as funny as it is, was also her indictment of McCarthyism in telling the story of the easy-going dreamer with a vivid imagination who is pitted against those who want him to conform to an accepted version of reality. I couldn’t help but think about local First Amendment hero John Henry Faulk when I read this play. John Henry was Karen Kuykendall’s uncle, which makes this show very appropriate to this particular inaugural season on the Karen Kuykendall stage.”

ZACH’s production of HARVEY features an all-star cast:  

MARTIN BURKE as Elwood P. Dowd, LAUREN LANE as Veta Louise Simmons, ERIN BARLOW as Myrtle Mae Simmons, LIZ BECKHAM as Ruth Kelly, R.N., DAVID JARROTT as Judge Omar Gaffney, FRITZ KETCHUM as Betty Chumley, SCOTTY ROBERTS as E.J. Lofgren, MICHAEL STUART as William R. Chumley, M.D., VICTOR STEELE as Duane Wilson, JACOB TRUSSELL as Lyman Sanderson, M.D, and M.J. VAN DIVIER as Mrs. Ethel Chauvenet

Scenic Design by MICHELLE NEY · Lighting Design by MATT WEBB · Costume Design by SUSAN BRANCH TOWNE · Sound Design by CRAIG BROCK · Properties Design by JUSTIN COX · Stage Management by LISA GOERING

ZACH’s production of HARVEY is sponsored by Executive Producers: James Armstrong and Larry Connelly, Carolyn and Marc Seriff, Carla Tyson Photography

Free Balcony Play series in conjunction with HARVEY

The second Balcony Play, to be launched in conjunction with HARVEY, opening May 15, will be a new comedic riff on A Midsummer Night's Dream. All Balcony Plays are FREE and open to the public. Concessions will be available; no tickets or reservations are necessary. See the schedule here: http://www.zachtheatre.org/content/balcony-plays-mad-beat-hip-gone-conversations.


ZACH Theatre is Austin’s leading professional producing theatre, employing more than 600 actors, musicians, and designers annually. Founded in 1932, ZACH is the longest running theatre company in Texas, serving 95,000 adults and youth annually. ZACH creates its own nationally recognized plays and musicals that ignite the imagination, lift the spirit, and engage the community under the proven leadership of Producing Artistic Director Dave Steakley and Managing Director Elisbeth Challener. Launching its 80th season in 2012, ZACH continues to expand and engage with Austin, adding the new 420-seat, 32,000-square-foot Topfer Theatre to its performing arts campus, nearly doubling ZACH’s capacity while retaining its hallmark intimate theatre-going experience. Visit www.zachtheatre.org for more information.
ZACH Theatre is sponsored in part, by Applied Materials, Austin Catering, Four Hands Home, Holiday Inn-Lady Bird Lake, Kirk Tuck Photography, Marquee Event Group, OnRamp, Austin American-Statesman, KXAN TV 36, and Time Warner Cable; and by grants from Junior League of Austin, The Shubert Foundation, The National Endowment for the Arts, Texas Commission on the Arts, and the City of Austin through the Cultural Arts Division, which believes an investment in the arts is an investment in Austin’s future. Visit Austin at NowPlayingAustin.com.

(Click to go to the AustinLiveTheatre front page)

God of Carnage by Yasmina Reza, Zach Theatre, November 29 - January 8

Zach Theatre's God of Carnage is a beautiful mess.

That's intentional. The set by Michael Raiford is sleekly contemporary with a bold abstract mural inspired by Cy Twombly spread across the back wall. This living room has a stark leather sofa, a Barcelona chair and large pillows in African-style fabrics, all positioned over a striking red floor so highly polished that the characters can probably see themselves in it. Somebody in this family has got money and and a strong sense of design or perhaps has employed a very decided home decorator.

The Zach Theatre is promoting Yasmina Reza's four-character piece as a boisterous farce about sophisticated adults losing it and behaving very badly. We're in the home of the Novaks, Veronica and Michael, whose middle-school-age son had a nasty confrontation with the son of the Raleighs, Alan and Annette. Responding to name-calling, the Raleigh boy bashed the Novak kid in the mouth with a stick, knocking out two teeth.

Now the adults are meeting to discuss the matter and to decide in civilized fashion just what should be done about it.

Hah. Good luck with that, especially when Yasmina Reza is creating you.

Read more at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .

Upcoming: God of Carnage by Yasmina Reza, Zach Theatre, November 29 - January 8

Received directly:

presents

God of Carnage

by Yasmina Reza

Translated by CHRISTOPHER HAMPTON | Directed by MATT LENZ

Starring LAUREN LANE of August: Osage County and Becky's New Car, THOMAS WARD, EUGENE LEE of The Book of Grace and ANGELA RAWNA of Doubt and NBC's Friday Night Lights

Scenic Design by Michael Raiford • Lighting Design by Sarah Maines • Costume Design by Susan Branch Towne • Sound Design by Sam Kokajko • Properties Design by Blake Reeves • Fight Choreography by Tina Gramann

November 29 - January 8, Tuesdays-Saturdays at 8 p.m., Sundays at 2:30 p.m.; GLBT Wilde Party is Thursday, Dec. 15^th

ZACH’s intimate Kleberg Stage, 1421 West Riverside Drive (corner of Riverside Dr. and S. Lamar Blvd.)(click for map)

Tickets range from $25-$65. Student tickets: $18, available one hour before showtime (valid student ID required). To order tickets call 512-476-0541 ext. 1 or visit www.zachtheatre.org.

A play date between two boys goes hysterically awry in this Tony-Award-winning Best Play comedy. When their parents meet for coffee to discuss the squabble, the rum begins to flow and the gloves come off in a side-splitting, free-for-all where parents behave badly in this quick-witted, piercingly uproarious play.

“God of Carnage has exceptionally written roles for actors and requires that you assemble four heavyweight champs and put them all in the boxing ring together to duke it out,” says ZACH’s Producing Artistic Director Dave Steakley. “The chemistry between Lauren Lane who was brilliant in August: Osage County, Eugene Lee who was amazing in The Book of Grace, Angela Rawna who took our breath away in Doubt, and outstanding NYC actor Thomas Ward will make this an unforgettable evening in the theatre. We’ll be talking about these performances for years to come!”

For real-time updates on ZACH Theatre news, events and happenings, visit http://www.zachtheatre.org/blog, be a fan of ZACH Theatre on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/zachtheatre, and follow ZACH on Twitter @zachtheatre http://www.twitter.com/zachtheatre.

About ZACH Theatre ZACH Theatre is Austin’s leading professional producing theatre. Founded in 1933, ZACH is the longest running theatre company in Texas, serving more than 170,000 adults and youth annually. ZACH creates its own nationally recognized dramatic, musical and comedic productions that elevate, motivate and stimulate the human spirit under the leadership of Producing Artistic Director Dave Steakley and Managing Director Elisbeth Challener. Now in its 78th season, ZACH continues to expand and engage with Austin, adding a third theatre to its Central Austin performance campus. The 420-seat, 26,000-square-foot Topfer Theatre will nearly double ZACH’s capacity while retaining its hallmark intimate theatre-going experience upon its completion in the fall of 2012 following a $22 million campaign. Visit www.zachtheatre.org for more information.

Upcoming: The Cherry Orchard by Chekov, University of Texas, September 17 - 24

Received directly:

The University of Texas presents

The Cherry Orchard

by Anton Chekhov

directed by Brant Pope

Sept 16, 17, 21, 22, 23, 24 at 8 p.m. and Sept 18, 25 at 2 p.m.
Venue: Oscar G. Brockett Theatre; 300 East 23rd Street (click for map) Parking available at UT's San Jacinto garage
Tickets: 512 471-1444 or on-line at Texas Performing Arts

In The Cherry Orchard, the audience is introduced to a charming yet exasperating Russian family that does nothing to save their beloved estate. Both poignant and comical,the story is a literary feat only Chekhov could compose.

The Cherry Orchard showcases a cast of student talent, accompanied by Lauren Lane, from television’s The Nanny, and most recently, ZACH Theatre’s production of August: Osage County.

Department of Theatre and Dance General Information: 512‐471-5793 or online

August: Osage County by Tracy Letts, Zach Theatre, March 31 - May 22

Director Dave Steakley proves that with a first-rate cast and a gifted scenic designer he can turn Tracey Letts' savage misanthropy into a mesmerizing long evening in the theatre.

That's no modest achievement. The last -- and first -- Letts work I saw was Capital T Theatre's Killer Joe, which I found violent and obscene. Not in the sexual sense, but because of Letts gloated while degrading his working-class characters. Perhaps Letts is easier to stomach in the modestly affluent middle-class home of the Westons than in the trailer park setting of Killer Joe.

Things fall apart in both places. Or, abjuring Yeats since in the opening scene Letts has the patriarch, retired literature professor Beverly Weston, ramble to the uncomprehending new housekeeper about T.S. Eliot, each play is set in a wasteland populated with hollow men. And while we're dealing with symbolism, let's get the housekeeper out of the way. Johnna Monevata is a simple, good-hearted full-blooded Indian -- a native American -- so we can see her as the authentic antithesis to the drug- and alcohol-soaked psycho Weston family that symbolizes the contemporary Anglo heartland.

You won't see Michael Holmes again until the curtain call, for patriarch Beverly Weston disappears, causing confusion and alarm. After he has been missing for four days, plain-Jane stay-at-home sister Ivy (Irene White) calls her two sisters as well as Aunt Mattie Fae and Uncle Charlie. All converge on the expansive, bourgeois triple-level set crafted by Zach's Michael Raiford, complete with a mechanical chair on a track by the staircase, allowing tottering mom Violet to get downstairs. The Zach jocularly calls it "one bitch of a family reunion." I call it a gripping extended battle, a sort of lengthy, determined knife fight, in which drug-dazed Violet (Lana Dieterich) and her embittered sister Mattie Fae (Janelle Buchanan) are the chief protagonists.

Click to read more at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .

Upcoming: August: Osage County by Tracy Letts, Zach Theatre, March 31 - May 22

Received directly:

presents one bitch of a family reunion

by Tracy Letts

directed by Dave Steakley

starring Lauren Lane, Michael Holmes, Lana Dietrich and Janelle Buchanan

March 31 - May 22

Previews: Thursday and Friday, March 31 and April 1 (7:30 p.m.)

Champagne Opening Night and Press Night: April 2 (7:30 p.m.)

Performances continue through MAY 22, 2011 (Wed., Thurs., Fri., Sat. @7:30 p.m.; Sunday @2:30 p.m.)

ZACH Theatre’s Kleberg Stage 1421 W. Riverside Dr. (Corner of Riverside Dr. and S. Lamar.)(click for map)

Tickets range from $20 to $49. $15 tickets are available to students starting one hour prior to curtain time. Charge tickets by phone at 512-476-0541, ext. 1 or visit http://www.zachtheatre.org.

ZACH – Austin’s Theatre and Texas’ longest running theatre company -- presents this scathingly hilarious tragicomedy of cataclysmic proportions, one bitch of a family reunion! When Dad unexpectedly vanishes into a sweltering Oklahoma summer night, the rest of the Weston clan rushes home to figure out what the hell happened. No easy feat with their serpent-tongued matriarch whose prolific pill-popping only sharpens her vitriolic outbursts. And if mama ain’t happy … she’ll make sure you’re worse! Perfectly subversive, this entertaining turbo-charged saga shocks with each new diabolically funny bombshell that’s dropped.

Read more and view links at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .

Becky's New Car by Steven Dietz, Zach Theatre, June 3 - July 11

Zach's post card calls it "A Revved-up Comic Adventure!"

The website is even more breathless, promising

"[a] life-affirming comedy about an eccentric millionaire who offers Becky the keys to a brand new life [in][. . . . ] a fantastically funny exploration about class, wealth and selling out during Becky's wild ride through a clever twist of events. Huge laughs, hairpin plot turns and a story with the pedal to the metal. Buckle up!"

So when we got a last-minute, unexpected chance to attend a dress rehearsal of Becky's New Car at the Zach, we couldn't resist. We even dressed up a bit, only to find ourselves well splashed by the Wednesday night downpour by the time we got to the theatre.

The house was relatively sparse, as you can see in these photos taken that same evening by Kirk R. Tuck. Playwright and Director Steven Dietz welcomed us but cautioned us that in this dress rehearsal they might at any time stop for adjustments or even decide to re-run scenes. That did not happen, but we were aware of Dietz and assistant director Courtney Sale sitting in rear rows and intently making notes.

Just as well. The web-blurb rode the car metaphor too far and promised more than the work-in-progress delivered that evening.

Lauren Lane is warm and endearing in her role as 40-something working mom Becky Foster. Playwright Dietz sets her up to win our hearts by granting her permission to talk directly with audience members. She's gracious and friendly, with a vague, lost air as she moves around the Whisenhut's intimate theatre in the round. When we first see her, she is picking up after her 26-year-old unemployed stay-at-home student son and her husband Joe the roofer. Most of the stage serves as her suburban home, with the desk in the southeast representing her job -- bookkeeper to a car dealership. Dietz gives her apparent command of the lights and staging, so that she can shuttle from one locale to the other at will.

Read more at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .

House of Several Stories, Imagine That Productions at Austin Playhouse, August 6 - 23

Think Bart Simson meets Betty Crocker on LSD, with a confident cast and decisive playwright/director who steer a comedy of infantile, broken characters through ambiguous plots and overlapping time to crisis and a touching resolution.

House of Several Stories, John Boulanger's MFA project at Texas State, had a reading at the university and played for just a flicker of time in early October, 2008 at the Blue Theatre in Austin. In April it won the Kennedy Center's American College Theatre competition for best student-written play. Boulanger's back in town under the aegis of a new sponsor, Imagine That Productions, and they have done up his script in style.

Members of this cast crackle with charisma. They play in a haunting 1950s- style interior in serene whites and greens designed by Griffon Ramsey. Sue, the mom, is a destroyed prom dreamboat who wears costumes in pink and in spangled green designed by Jillan Hanel. You might consider settling in your seat as soon as the house opens to enjoy 15-20 minutes of bright time-warp vocal pop put together by Craig Brock.

Read more at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .

Upcoming: House of Several Stories, Imagine That Productions at Austin Playhouse, August 6 - 23

Click for ALT review of August 7

UPDATE: Jeanne Claire van Ryzin's interview of playwright John Boulanger, Statesman's Austin 360 "Seeing Things" blog, August 6

Received directly and explored on-line:

Imagine That Productions
presents its inaugural production

House of Several Stories: a tragedy in two acts of nonsense
winner of the 2009 Kennedy Center Student Playwriting Award
written and directed by A. John Boulanger

August 6-23, 2009
Thur-Sat, 8 p.m., Sundays. 5 p.m.
Austin Playhouse at Penn Field
3601 S. Congress

$20 general admission, $15 students,
special champagne opening Friday August 7--$30
tickets available through www.austinplayhouse.com
Media Contacts: www.it-productions.org or (512) 476-0084

Thanksgiving isn’t what it used to be in the absurdist play about an eccentric family and their unusual guests. House of Several Stories explores how stories (whether true, false, or borrowed) help fill the vacuum in our lives caused by death, loss, and dysfunction.

House of Several Stories won the honor of this year’s National Student Playwriting Award from the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival. The Austin professional premiere stars the Lauren Lane (CBS's The Nanny, Zach Scott's The Clean House), Martin Burke (Take Me Out, The Santaland Diaries) Meredith McCall (Caroline or Change, Urinetown) , Adam Pearson and Kelli Schultz (High School Musical) with lighting by Jason Amato, costumes by Jillan Hanel, and set by Griffon Ramsey.

John Boulanger received his BFA in directing from Texas State in 2005 and his MA in playwriting in 2009. House Of Several Stories was originally selected as one of seven productions presented at the regional American College Theatre Festival held at Texas State this past January. It was then chosen as one of four to make it all the way to the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington D.C. This marked the first time a Texas State production had advanced to the national festival and the first time a Texas State student received the National Student Playwriting Award. Past award recipients include Paula Vogel, James Leonard, and Lee Blessing.

The Clean House, Zach Scott Theatre, July 10 to August 17

Everyone in the full house at the Whisenhunt Stage at the Zach Scott enjoyed this four-actor comedy by Sarah Ruhl, winner in 2006 of a MacArthur “genius” fellowship.

I was lucky to be able to see the show at all. As a newcomer to the Zach Scott, I had assumed that the reduced prices for Wednesday evening shows were intended to scrape up an audience – after all, almost none of the other companies in town function on Wednesdays.

When I showed up 35 minutes before the curtain, I found myself given a “standby pass” for my $15. I was number 14 in the line of hopefuls. We watched the mixed crowd file happily into the theatre ahead of us; at curtain time the house manager brought out ten tickets and passed them out. He spotted an additional seat during the wait; and then a single spot was left. The couple holding numbers 12 and 13 decided not to split their evening, so I arrived as the final bottom to fill a seat, still not knowing what to expect.

The show started with a lithe young Brazilian woman telling a joke – in Portuguese. A super-title helpfully explained, “A young woman tells a joke in Portuguese.” And in fact, it was funny – not for the text, which I followed only vaguely (“A doctor tells his patient to . . . “) but for the abandon, the hip motions, and the timing of the final “boom – boom – boom.”). Given the suggestive pose of the poster, I wasn’t at all certain what we were about to receive.

From there, Ruhl’s piece rapidly set up the farce: we begin in the living room of middle-aged but very well kept and attractive Lane, a physician (Lauren Lane, billed for her 6 years on the TV series The Nanny and now teaching at Texas State at San Marcos). She discovers that her newly-hired Brazilian maid (Smaranda Ciceu) has been sitting glumly in the house and not cleaning. Lane is discomfited, uneasily suggesting to Mathilde, the maid, that perhaps she might wish to do something about the bathroom. . . .

Uh, oh, I thought, we are in for an exploration of social class and exploited migrant labor. . . . but no, in a rapid set of developments Lane’s plain, socially stunted sister Virginia (Barbara Chisholm), a fanatic for cleaning, arranges to sneak into the house and do Mathilde’s job for her; Mathilde tells of her deceased parents, “the greatest jokesters in Brazil” (who obligingly appear as fantasies, incarnated by Tom Green and Alicia Kaplan); the women gradually realize that Lane’s surgeon husband Charles must be having an affair; and eventually Lane discovers both their conspiracy and that of Charles, who has run off with one of his aged patients immediately after performing her mastectomy.

Lots of commotion, lots of fast and zany dialogue, and suddenly Charles and his new paramour Ana are announced at the front door. Blackout, intermission.

In the second act, these characters collide with the agreeable energy of pinballs. Charles and Ana (played by Green and Kaplan) earnestly explain that they have found in one another their soul mates, and entreat the others to understand; Mathilde, briefly fired by Lane and then reinstated, is immediately at home with Ana, who is from Argentina. When Lane sends away the new couple, Mathilde winds up splitting her time between the two domiciles. But Ana’s cancer quickly recurs and she determinedly rejects medical care. . . prompting Charles to silly, desperate tactics and serving to realize a series of reconciliations.

There are many delights here. Smaranda Ciceu as Mathilde the maid is appealing - - for her earnest devotion to following up her parents’ love for jokes and her adroit portrayal of miscomprehensions both cultural and linguistic. Her concentration and big-eyed intensity in reacting to the other characters speak worlds of innocence – and in a crucial scene near the finale, her bewonderment and grief are heart-breaking.

Lauren Lane merits her star billing. She functions as the “straight man” for all the others’ eccentricities but her superb timing and subtle, visibly progressing reactions hold her at the center of the action. Here is a disadvantage of theatre in the round – inevitably she has her back to some part of the audience, who get a completely different “read” of the action, unable to follow it in her face. The tradeoff, of course, is proximity, so that the audience feel that they are sharing a living room with the characters. Director Dave Steakley has worked conscientiously with his blocking to minimize the disruption, but the fact is that if one were seated across the playing space, one would see a different play.

The author and director at times happily disrupt the audience's suspension of disbelief, provoking sudden laughter with "magic realism" when hallucinations become shared or defined playing spaces unexpectedly, absurdly merge. Suddenly the sea becomes the living room becomes an Alaskan snowstorm, to our shared delight.

Each actor completely inhabits his or her character. . . and yet, and yet. . . .At the end I joined the good-hearted ovations for the actors, but later, upon reflection, I found myself profoundly uneasy with the play.

Not for the presentation, but for the text itself. And all the more because of the plaudits given to the author.

This is cruel comedy, as all comedy is, and it is administered with a stiletto touch.

These characters are as thin as paper dolls. For example, Charles, the successful surgeon, is presented as a genial idiot (no blame accrues to Green, who does wonders with a character written as impossibly simple-minded).

This is a play for and about women. Lane and Virginia, the sisters “who do not look alike” are differently obsessed with control and are unable to deal with men or with their own emotions. The melancholy Mathilde has no back story other than that of her joke-infatuated parents and her desire to become a comedian. (How did she get to the United States? How did she wind up as Lane’s employee?) Mathilde serves as the “Innocente,” foil to Ana, and observer of the madness of others. And the noble Ana. 30 years a widow - - when facing death, she becomes the voice of commitment to whim and of resistance to the medical establishment.

And what is the Great Joke, the best joke in the world, the one that Mathilde seeks without cease to articulate? This is the secret that she communicates to Ana as the end approaches. We are left to imagine it – and to suppose that the Great Joke may turn on the futility of passion, on the incomprehension between the sexes, or on the fact that whatever we do or seek, we are all doomed to die, leaving our ends unaccomplished.

“The Clean House” is a box of chocolates laced with belladonna. One might taste and enjoy it just once, without harm, but one is tempted to dip into that box again and again.

Click for:

Austin Statesman review by Jeanne Claire van Ryzin, July 17

Interview with Lauren Lane by Jeanne Claire van Ryzin, July 17

Lauren Lane on early sci-fi influences, Austin Chronicle, July 24

Austin Chronicle review by Elizabeth Cobbe, August 1