The Clean House, in its last few days at the Denver Center for Performing Arts, drew a receptive crowd that was ready to laugh and ready to cry.

The play was an emotional roller coaster that took the audience through a range of events and emotions including marriage, birth, death, love, hope and laughter.

The characters were both appropriately liked and disliked.

Matilde was the obvious favorite — as a Brazilian maid who does not like to clean, she was the comic relief throughout the play.

Matilde began the play by cracking a joke in Portuguese, and while her body movements drew laughs, the actual joke remains a mystery.

Lane was disliked from the start, but by the end she had redeemed herself in some ways.

A highly motivated and bullheaded doctor, Lane elicited laughs from her overreactions and outbursts.

Virginia, the anal-retentive sister, was socially awkward and yet liked by all. Charles and Ana stole the second half of the show by their plight, which provided the backdrop for the second half.

The Clean House was fun and thoughtful, basing the majority of the emotion and humor on slightly absurd plot twists.

Throughout the play, the audience could not predict the next turn of events or how the characters would react.

The dynamic nature of the characters and the wide range of emotions portrayed within the two acts kept the audience engaged, interested and empathetic to the predicaments of the characters.

The first half of the play was the more humorous half, with the audience laughing frequently at funny (though sometimes shocking) statements made by Lane, Matilde and Virginia. The “subtitles” projected onto the top of the set provided a comical narration to the already-funny on-stage action.

After the intermission, the emotional side of the play began to show almost immediately.

The change in tone was so sudden and complete that it was almost tangible. While the first half was fairly light and full of laughs, the second half was darker, and brought tears to several eyes.

The play had a bittersweet ending, with a death but also with reconciliation and hope for the future.

Matilde ended the play by saying, “I think heaven is a sea of untranslatable jokes, except everyone is laughing.” Overall, the play was good, dark humor based around an emotionally charged situation.

However, the play garnered mixed reviews from students in Professor Samson’s honors English class. Several of the students were ambivalent, liking the humor but finding fault with either the characters or the plot.

They felt that Ana was not a strong enough character, or they thought that Charles was out of his mind.

On the other hand, other students were positive about the play, calling it amusing and witty. The Clean House is definitely worth seeing at any venue throughout the Denver area.