If the evening begins with each of the characters aswirl in his or her own eddy, by the end they've been drawn together in one irresistible vortex. This occurs primarily in the home of Lane and Charles married doctors too distracted to notice each other anymore. The living room is a reflection of the characters' relationship: as sterile as the hospitals in which they have privileges. Everything is white, white, white, which explains the need for the live-in domestic Matilde, a dreamy, attractively rumpled young woman whose devotion to housework is about on a par with Paris Hilton's.

Fortunately for Matilde, Lane's sister Virginia, a depressive for whom an hour with an ironing board is therapy, willingly takes up Matilde's slack and secretly becomes her sister's housekeeper. Marshall gives such an intelligently controlled performance that she manages to make folding undershirts seem a guilty pleasure. The Clean House, however, is less concerned with sitcom-ish plot formulations than with the mysterious power unleashed by unlikely alliances, such as the bond between Virginia and Matilde, or the one between Charles and the new autumnal love of his life, Ana. One of the characters is stricken with a terminal illness, but the play's toughest task falls to  Lane, a woman with her jaw permanently clenched, who is beseeched by besotted Charles to welcome Ana into their home.

Ruhl intermittently has surtitles flashed on a panel above the set, as if her characters were the subjects of a documentary. Some of them are mere recitations of apparent events: "Virginia takes stock of her sister's dust." Others offer ironic commentary: "Virginia and Lane experience a primal moment in which they are 7 and 9 years old." The device is strangely comforting. It adds a spiritual dimension to a play that seems almost as preoccupied with matters of the soul as of the heart.

Matilde proves to be a delightfully unorthodox guide through this story of wounds and healing, and Lemos brings an ethereal appeal to her portrayal; her Matilde feels somehow both grounded and guileless. Some of what the playwright asks of her walks right up to the edge of archness. Matilde tells us, for example, that her parents, now dead, were "the funniest people in Brazil" and that she is on a mission in their honor to compose the perfect joke. Oddly enough, this quest serves a purpose at the play's climax, which touchingly justifies the several curious scenes you've sat through, listening cluelessly to jokes in Portuguese.

As it shifts from the consolations of housework to those of death and dying, "The Clean House" mixes whimsy and solemnity a bit too artificially. (The journey by Charles to Alaska in search of a yew tree is one plot twist too many; by this point, we've already been apprised that he'd do anything for Ana.) Still, there's a moving idea of reconciliation in the production's final movement that's extremely well handled. Up next for Ruhl is her epic-length "Passion Play." It's something to look forward to. For the best reasons, "The Clean House" leaves you wanting more.        – By Peter Marks, Washington Post