“The Same House,” written and directed by Martha Jane Kaufman ’08, was most unlike the puzzle pieces that littered the set and were constantly referenced within the dialogue. The play, performed last weekend in the ’92 Theater, was quite simple and, at times, frustratingly explicit in its meaning. But as I left the play on Thursday night, I realized I had experienced something refreshingly honest and tender.
Kaufman wrote the play, which is not her first, after the news that a neighbor had died of leukemia two summers ago—a moment which occurs in the play and serves as the impetus for the main character’s examination of her past. She arrived at rehearsals at the beginning of this semester with a script that had room for change.
The result: a simple framework of a woman watching her past unfold, with innovative twists. The play follows the friendship of two little girls and the differences that get in the way.
The play began with two women sitting on their beds on opposite sides of the stage. Jasmine, played by Susana Mysreth ’10, entered the bedroom of one, Clara, who was played with earnestness by the promising actress Chiara De Lello ’10. Jasmine simply asks, “Do you sleep in Caroline’s bed?”
At this point, I thought the play would be about a complicated lesbian love triangle. As Jasmine left one bedroom for another I assumed the second woman was Caroline. But I soon realized that this second woman was an older Clara, played with an aura of wisdom by Brittany Delany ’09. Jasmine, it turned out, was a Barbie doll that the two young characters shared throughout their childhood.
Two of the main characters find themselves falling in love with close female friends: Clara’s mother explores a lesbian relationship while Clara develops an innocent crush on her conservatively Christian, neighborhood pal Caroline. In an excellently written moment, both female pairs simultaneously exchanged spontaneous kisses that forced the audience to see them as one event.
Riki Goldberg ’09 played the role of the mother with dripping sarcasm. She and her lover Gretchen, played by Rachel Fischhoff ’08, were the comedic highlights of the show.
The costumes were generally understated; I identified Jasmine as the Barbie Doll very late into the show, which could’ve been established through clearer costuming. Overall, it was difficult to determine age from the costumes, an important element in a play with the same character played twice, and a parent-child relationship between actors of similar heights.
The scenery consisted of two beds across from each other: the bedrooms, suggested by black windows were connected by a bridge of similar construction, an interesting visual metaphor of time. In front of the stage were a set of blocks representing a tree and next to it was a living room dominated by strewn puzzle pieces. The chaos of the objects in the living room contrasted sharply with the rest of the set. The clutter paralleled the chaos of those living in it, but it didn’t fit perfectly into the aesthetic scheme of the set.
The puzzle pieces I noticed at the play’s beginning became quite important by the end, perhaps too obviously. Clara’s downtrodden father was obsessed with finding the final piece for his human body puzzle. He was searching as Clara read aloud from a letter she had never been able to send to her childhood best friend and first love. “Caroline,” Clara read, “you didn’t have any pieces missing.” Clara was in love; anyone could see that, with or without the puzzle.
Obvious as it was, Clara spoke tenderly. This love, though predictable, was heartfelt. And I believed it.
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