Broadway review by Adam Feldman
Sometimes the old can be full of surprises. That’s the running premise of The Roommate, which brings together two very different senior citizens—Sharon, an unworldly Iowan played by Mia Farrow, and her new housemate, Robyn, a streetwise Bronx transplant played by Patti LuPone—and sends them down paths of self-discovery. It’s also what makes this production of Jen Silverman’s crowd-pleasing comedy work as well as it does. A variation on odd-couple themes, the play tills land that has been farmed many times. Yet it finds freshness in the familiar through a series of small twists—and, in Farrow’s star turn, an enchanting revelation.
The Roommate seems expressly engineered as catnip for small local theaters: one set, one act, two juicy roles for leading ladies of a certain age. But director Jack O’Brien, that sly lord of all genres, has conceived it smartly for Broadway. Farrow and LuPone take a curtain call before the show even begins, walking onstage to applause as their names are projected in giant letters behind them, as though to announce upfront that this play is to be appreciated as a showcase for actors you know and love. And Bob Cowley’s scenic design situates the whole thing in artifice. Although The Roommate takes place in Iowa City, Sharon’s house, stripped to its wooden skeleton, has been plopped in the middle of rural nowhere; on the rear wall, crisp images of an old-fashioned barn and windpump sit on a pixelated field of corn.
The Roommate | Photograph: Courtesy Julieta Cervantes
Within the safety of this framework, Farrow and LuPone’s performances seem all the more startlingly real. On some level, of course, they are playing types, designed for maximum contrast. Farrow’s Sharon is a sweet Midwestern blatherskite, in blonde pigtails and loose-fitting flannels, who hasn’t been on a date since the ones with her ex-husband. LuPone’s Robyn, a lesbian and a vegan, is all attitude and confidence, with a brown shag haircut, dark lipstick, a leather jacket and a shady past. It is not quite clear how these two connected in the first place—Sharon seems too timid to invite a stranger to share her home, sight unseen—but the unlikeliness of their friendship is the point. Inevitably, the queer outlaw and the ungay divorcée turn out to have some things in common; they are both being avoided by the children, for instance, Robyn because she’s dangerous and Sharon because she’s dull. (Ronan Farrow makes an uncredited cameo on an answering machine.) And equally inevitably, they rub off on each other: Patti embraces innocence, Mia culpa.
But these two deeply seasoned actors—Farrow is 79 and LuPone is 75, though their characters are somewhat younger—transcend the schematics of their roles. LuPone is justly celebrated as one of our great musical-theater divas, and here she reminds you that she can also be highly effective in nonmusical parts. She is convincing both as a tough nut and a cracked one; her Robyn has just enough hurt behind the necessary toughness. Her function in The Roommate is largely supportive, however. The play is essentially Sharon’s story, and Farrow tells it masterfully: Her voice spans octaves to dazzling effect, and she positively glows as she peels behind Sharon’s mild mannerisms to reveal an exultant shrewdness. While Farrow has been funny in the past—her diction-class scene in Radio Days is priceless—she is not an actor we associate primarily with comedy, which makes her triumph in this role all the more all the more satisfying. What a delightful surprise.
The Roommate. Booth Theatre (Broadway). By Jen Silverman. Directed by Jack O’Brien. With Mia Farrow, Patti LuPone. Running time: 1hr 40mins. No intermission.
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The Roommate | Photograph: Courtesy Matthew Murphy