At the start of Jen Silverman’s The Roommate, Sharon (Mia Farrow) has just invited Robyn (Patti LuPone) to stay in her Iowa home. This pair of near-strangers couldn’t be less alike. Sharon is a divorced mother who’s just joined a book club, while Robyn is a lesbian from the Bronx who may or may not be on the lam from a criminal past. Sharon wears a plaid shirt and Pippi Longstocking pigtails, while Robyn wears a leather jacket and sunglasses. And, most crucially, Sharon is a fully realized, sharply crafted human being, while Robyn is a fuzzily drawn sketch of a character that never comes into focus throughout the play.
That contrast lies, in large part, in the casting of Silverman’s 2015 buddy comedy, staged simply but efficiently by veteran Jack O’Brien in its New York premiere. Farrow, in her long-awaited return to Broadway, makes Sharon instantly specific and complex. Sharon stammers with endearingly awkward Midwestern good intentions when Robyn comes out to her. She speaks in a timidly high-pitched tone except when she’s overcome with curiosity about Robyn’s illicit past, at which point her voice suddenly drops two octaves. Throughout the show, Sharon does her best to conceal a simmering cruel streak, as when she off-handedly remarks that people who do hot yoga “all look so healthy and happy, you sort of want to injure them.”
Because it’s so clear so quickly who Sharon is, the madcap adventures on which she embarks—from getting high for the first time to attempting a French accent while committing an initial criminal act of her own—all pour from the same convincing fount. As Sharon struggles to liberate her bubbling sense of joy, there’s so much nuanced agitation beneath the straitlaced surface that Farrow never risks slipping toward mousy caricature.
In order for Robyn to transcend stereotype, on the other hand, the role requires an undercurrent of vulnerability if we’re to believe that this caustic scofflaw really has come to Iowa in search of genuine reinvention. LuPone excels at delivering Robyn’s deadpan asides and at communicating Robyn’s right-off-the-bat reluctance to befriend her new naïve companion. But vulnerable? LuPone’s usual brand is a tough sophistication with a callused exterior that never cracks—think her breakout role as Eva Perón or her most recent Tony-winning turn as Joanne in Company—and Silverman’s text seems to call out for a softer approach.
The ever-unfiltered LuPone said in a recent interview that she was offered the role after Annette Bening passed on it. Whether or not that’s true (the producers subsequently denied the story), it’s not so hard to imagine actors who might more seamlessly fill those gaps between Robyn’s outward grittiness and her unexpressed gentler yearnings. Maybe it’s Robyn’s secret stash of driver’s licenses boasting dozens of different identities, but she never seems like the same person from scene to scene, just a compilation of bad behaviors. “I was born as a malleable, changeable template,” Robyn insists. LuPone doesn’t push much beyond that.
At its funniest, The Roommate is a comedy of manners, an unapologetic throwback. Robyn pours copious amounts of almond milk into Sharon’s coffee mug as if she were a chain-smoking, vegan Cecily Cardew heaping lumps of sugar into Gwendolyn Fairfax’s teacup in The Importance of Being Earnest. If the play grows increasingly predictable once Sharon succumbs entirely to her id, there’s an unfettered delight in watching Farrow find the friction between this buttoned-up senior’s rules for herself and her unexplored devilish impulses. (Composer David Yazbek’s kookily dissonant underscoring between scenes captures this tension perfectly.)
At one point in The Roommate, when Robyn’s past dalliances with credit card scams come to light, Sharon’s eyes widen with recognition: “Are you the Nigerians?” she chirps, half-frightened and half-hopeful. At once clueless and brilliant, terrified of the unknown but fed-up with the familiar, Farrow’s Sharon is rich enough to pay the rent all on her own.
The Roommate is now running at the Booth Theatre.
Since 2001, we've brought you uncompromising, candid takes on the world of film, music, television, video games, theater, and more. Independently owned and operated publications like Slant have been hit hard in recent years, but we’re committed to keeping our content free and accessible—meaning no paywalls or fees.
If you like what we do, please consider subscribing to our Patreon or making a donation.
