"The Clean House," happenings.

Yesterday was a wonderful day.

I woke up late, as is typical for a Saturday. Around mid-afternoon, I went to Starbucks to read The Clean House and Late: A Cowboy Song by Sarah Ruhl. After a while, a homeless man started talking to me about how he had had to buy vodka to help ease the pain of his toothache. He was reading a book about a famous bank robber in Europe who hadn't yet been caught. Anyway, he was an interesting man. After eating dinner, I went to 12th Street Books and then went to head uptown to Lincoln Center to see The Clean House.

At the 1 stop at Christopher Street, there was apparently some sort of crime-related problem, and, in being confused, I sort of gestured to this other guy down near the turnstiles and asked what was going on. So, we struck up a little conversation and walked together to 14th Street. His name was Juan. I have to say it was one of the most affecting conversations I've ever had, and we didn't even really talk about all that much. I just hate people who are all crazily anti-immigration. Much of how our society is today is because of immigrants. New York is such a great city, because every day you meet someone or talk to someone or see something, and it can change your perspective on things in ways you've never thought possible.

Last night, I saw The Clean House at Lincoln Center Theater's Mitzi Newhouse Theater. It's a play by Sarah Ruhl that has caught on across the country and finally arrived in New York. The play was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, and Sarah just recently recieved a McArthur Fellowship ("genius grant").

Anyway, that's besides the point. She has a very beautiful vision for writing plays. Though her dialogue is not always the best (and it's often wonderful), she clearly thinks out the structure of her plays and delivers symbolism like no other. She's able to construct symbolic moments in her writing that work so seamlessly theatrically. Rather than hitting you over the head with what you're supposed to think, they manage to be beautifully affecting.

The story concerns a maid, Matilde (pronounced "Ma-chill-gee") who doesn't like to clean; her doctor employer, Lane; Lane's sister, Virginia, who takes over for Matilde; and Lane's husband, who after finding his bashert, runs off with his beautiful cancer patient, Ana. It was a lovely story, melding the simple occurrences of life with moments of magic. I highly recommend the play to any imaginative theatregoer.