"In the first minutes of the performance The Clean House at the National Theatre from Bucharest, directed by Felix Alexa and based on a text by Sarah Ruhl, I relived beautiful memories of my childhood, when, in front of a blank sheet of paper, in front of an exam, it happened that I didn't know anything...

How was I supposed to portray what I was seeing on the stage of the Pictura Hall? Knowing nothing about the author (until I took the playbill in my hands I was absolutely sure that I was going to see a performance after a play by a Slovenian author), where was I supposed to place it? Under the spectators' eyes, a performance began to unfold that had too tenuous a connection to the magical realism written about in the booklet. At first I thought I had stumbled upon a vaudeville, with a complicated and unrealistic plot; then I left the vaudeville aside and went for the interpretative line of the parody: more than likely something was being parodied there, and I had only to find out the object. Still trying to reduce the unknown of the dramatic text to the known, I found myself completely absorbed in the performance.

Directed by Felix Alexa, the performance had only surface encounters with jokes, comedy and humor. Far from being "funny" and falling into vaudeville or comedy, it was drama in the fullest sense of the word. The director made, through the performances of the two actresses supporting the show, Irina Movilă and Ana Ciontea, everything "pivot" from an easy, uncomplicated comedy to a drama - two, to be precise - that is masterfully played out before our eyes."

Daniel Cristea-Enache, Liternet - One Woman Show – The Clean House   

"This text has also benefited from an intelligent staging thanks to the recent staging at the National Theatre from Bucharest. The stage direction, signed by Felix Alexa, has raised chuckles as well as sighs in the audience and has transformed the text signed by Sarah Ruhl into a necessary and remarkable social satire, devoid of anger but full of humor. "The Clean House" makes the most of the sharp humor, theatrical daring and emotional richness. Felix Alexa has the 'audacity' to be subtly modern. The sobriety of the stage construction is perfectly suited to the tone and mood of the writer who uses magical realism and nonlinear structure when addressing issues of gender, race, class, sexuality and cultural differences.

Felix Alexa guides the actors to find the right tones for the strange grooves in Sarah Ruhl's writing, the flexible ebb and flow between naturalism and fantasy.

The staging becomes a performance full of poetry and mystery, set in a house/hut/ship in a hypothetical ocean - a place of deep meaning; a space where our ancestral fears dwell, but also a place from which we can emerge stronger than we entered."

Mădălina Dumitrache, Bel-esprit – Sailing towards the meaning of life  

"The new production directed by Felix Alexa, The Clean House, staged at the NTB's Pictură Hall, written by Sarah Ruhl, at first glance would seem to be a light, American comedy with a little marital drama wrapped in a few laughs, where everything ends well and the audience leaves happy. But appearances can be deceiving.

Felix Alexa has come at just the right time with this production, which, under the illusion of comedy, will make people leave the theatre a little changed. Especially since it's a show that you really have something to analyze and talk about. All the more so because there are serious and well-documented studies about the psychological impact that the simple act of cleaning can have on a person. Perhaps it's worth taking a look at them, because it's likely to change your perspective on what you'll see."

Andrei Bulboacă, Liternet – A Clean House with… Dusty Souls... – The Clean House  

Translated by Andreea Codrea-Boeriu