The Roommate

With Patti LuPone and Mia Farrow as the lead and only performers in this play by Jen Silverman,  I booked before I even landed in New York. In the Booth Theatre in the centre of the Hells Kitchen area of Broadway, the house was pretty much full. 

As is the custom in New York we got handed our free Playbill/programme as we entered. I have to say that while it is nice to get a cast listing without spending the fiver it costs in the UK, I do miss the more considered articles giving context that can be found in the more serious end of the UK theatre programme. Another weird thing about the Broadway experience is the way that Farrow and LuPone came out first to receive an ovation before they actually even started the play.. And then the applause at the end of every single scene. This made it feel like a sitcom and broke up the flow a bit unnecessarily from my perspective.  

Anyway, the play is based on an odd couple set up, with Farrow playing Sharon, who after her mid-life divorce has decided to take a lodger in her Iowa farmhouse. LuPone plays Robyn, a tough talking, wise cracking woman from the Bronx who is clearly running from something, although it takes a while to find out what. Sharon is hesitant, sheltered and unsure of the modern world, and clearly stuck with not understanding where she fits in the world now that she is no longer a wife, or even really a mother as her son has moved away and is largely absent. In comparison Robyn is worldly wise and cynical and doesn't claim a role as a wife or mother at all. The first half of the play is them uncovering each other and finding that they are bringing the best out of each other, and with lots of laughs on the way, as Sharon discovers that the plants that Robyn has been cultivating are weed, and that actually she quite likes it. Robyn meanwhile discovers the charms of a quieter life and friendship.

The second half speeds up a lot as Sharon gets organised and takes things to lengths that Robyn isn't really prepared for.  Some of the tone felt a bit old fashioned, and there are lots of little subtplots, some of which felt a bit cliched although they stay largely undeveloped. For example, Sharon doesn't believe her son is gay, even though his 'girlfriend' is a lesbian 'not that there is anything wrong with that'.  We never meet Robyn's daughter either, who disapproves of her mother's life style but the miscommunication phone calls were entertaining if not very original. The final denoument wasn't much of a surprise but still rounded things up very nicely, with Sharon having found a new purpose and excitement to life. I felt a bit sad about Robyn though, who was still running, and I wasn't very clear how her story was going to end.

The best thing about this play though is seeing these two great actors performing together. Farrow, who is now 79 years old still appeared slightly fragile even as her character became energised but she handled her unfolding and blossoming with subtlety and charm and she delivered her final line with a sense of joy that rounded off the bittersweet ending beautifully. I found Patti LuPone's performance a bit overdone with the brash sharpness at the start, but it did then give us the chance to see her soften over time.  Both have fantastic comic timing which was an absolute pleasure to watch, and made me laugh a lot. 

So, an uneven play, but fantastic performances by some great legends of stage and screen which justify the cost of the tickets on that alone.