Broadway’s “The Roommate” Entertains with Surprising Slowly Unpacked Boxes – front mezz junkies, Theater News

The Broadway Theatre Review: Jen Silverman’s The Roommate

By Ross

With only corn and wide open spaces surrounding this framing, The Roommate, a new play by Jen Silverman (Spain), unpacks itself, somewhat casually and over time, before us. It’s an entertaining enjoyable concoction that we have been gifted, with some of those boxes, unloaded from an unseen car stay, piling up on the side patio, symbolically and physically waiting to be brought in and unpacked by the uninspired Robyn (or is it Victoria?). So much is hidden, ignored, and denied in those somewhat wrongly labeled cardboard boxes, that we are as curious as the homeowner about what is inside. We know that feeling, in a matter of speaking. To throw away or to store in the back closet? That is the questions, and as portrayed forcibly and fascinatingly by the powerful Patti LuPone (Broadway’s Company; War Paint), Robyn is a mystery, enveloped in black leather, engaging in conversation yet giving off a reluctance to completely open up, or even move in after a multi-day drive from the Bronx. For reasons, at first, unsaid. She has made her way to Iowa – escaping some part of herself, perhaps – and landed, much to her surprise, at the home of Sharon, portrayed with detailed intent by the wonderful Mia Farrow (Broadway’s Love Letters; “Death on the Nile“), who has just retired herself from a marriage, and has no idea where to look.

This odd couple feels as different as two roommates can be, looking at, and studying, each other over a coffee (with or without almond milk). It feels like there is a wide unspoken ocean separating the two, more than a (kitchen) island. But, as designed expertly by Bob Crowley (Broadway’s Carousel) with subtle lighting shifts by Natasha Katz (Broadway’s Hell’s Kitchen), a solid sound design by Mikaal Sulaiman (Broadway’s Fat Ham), and some clever original music by David Yazbek (Off-Broadway’s Dead Outlaw), the vastness of Iowa hangs over and around them instead, with an ever-changing sky and only the occasional tornados to be afraid of. We can’t help but lean in, wondering where this playful play is going, and what has brought these two differing and fascinating souls together. And more importantly, what kind of conflict lies ahead as these two sit across from one another, probing and deflecting, as they have always, it seems, to have done. Maybe those traits are what has brought them here, together, if you listen closely to those phone call messages left.

Directed with a gentle casual hand by Jack O’Brien (Broadway’s Shucked), the unpacking happens slowly, almost too much so in the first third of this 90-minute one-act play, with the ever-curious but nervous Sharon peppering the wary NYer with questions and looks; questions that maybe should have been asked long before she actually arrived at her doorstep. But even then, Sharon’s need for companionship might have outweighed her ever-present anxiety. Her blank-slatedness is astonishingly clear and well portrayed, giving the character a naive needy framing that also has an achingly sad aroma to it, with Farrow expertly really finding the meek shuffling to support both her predicament and her unknown untapped desire within.

She repeatedly asks and says inappropriate (overdone at times) things to the vague information given by LuPone’s wonderfully wrapped-up Robyn, giving Farrow’s Sharon a fascinatingly uncomfortable place to hang out in, even as she stands, shuffling her way around her own kitchen. She doesn’t seem to be at home in her own house, and in her body, for that matter, anxiously prying and diving at any differences set out before her. Robyn, as seen by Sharon, is everything she wishes she could be, we quickly learn, living in a land of ‘yes’ and ‘why not’ when all Sharon has been taught is a world of ‘no’. “Everyone told me not to do things,” and we feel the walls closing in on her as Robyn arrives, boxes in hand, even in those wide open spaces of Iowa.

Sharon and Robyn are each having a certain kind of personal identity crisis, brought to the surface by their entanglement and ever-growing camaraderie. But in this sweet-natured, fairly funny play, the unwinding takes a bit of time, and a whole lot of telephone calls to children living very separate lives far away from these two characters. Both have a lot to learn from one another, but it’s in Sharon’s desire for expansion that the play finally gets its fuel and its connection to Normandy and Senegal. LuPone delivers the perfect formulation for a woman wanting change and growth, pleading for the continuance of where they are, and the escape she was seeking. LuPone is sharp and perfect in her portrayal, delivering damaged goods in a survival framing; solid but easily broken like those packed pottery dolls thrown haphazardly in an open box that have so many stories to tell. But the play really finds its heart in Farrow’s Sharon. She moves quickly into a place of thriving like never before just weeks into the roommate situation, and we love her awkward awakening, even when it starts to feel a bit forced and premature.

The two actors find a casual simplicity in their deepening, even when The Roommate remains boxed up, weighing less than what I was hoping for. It plays with our sentiment, finding the hooks into our soul, particularly with Farrow’s finely orchestrated performance. When her voice drops with the ultimate realization, and when she shuffles in circles waiting for it all to kick in, we realize she has captured us in her spell. We feel for this forgotten woman living in a state that is not her own. We cheer her on, even when she, somewhat inauthentically, goes a bit too far, slow-dancing into her newly found freedom and desire for expansion. We sit back, happily hoping she will find her way through, and applauding these two fine actors for the joyful entertainment they just gifted us with.