Mia Farrow has not been on a Broadway stage for so long that we forgot how much we missed her. Now she’s back in a new play called The Roommate, and she’s forgotten nothing, so why should we? She’s got the same fragile, pink, not-quite-grownup beauty and the same transcendental, understated charm she always had, but she’s added a few tricks to the mix in the direction of been-around maturity that spells wisdom. The play, by rookie playwright Jen Silverman, is a two-hander, which means there are two stars for the price of one, and the other half of the stage is more than fully occupied by the formidable Patti LuPone. To be honest, nobody who knows—or cares—about the theatre would call The Roommate anything to write home about. But with co-stars like these, you certainly get your money’s worth.
If opposites attract, then the Farrow-LuPone combo is what I call perfect casting. Farrow plays Sharon, a lonely 65-year-old divorced nerd with dated pigtails, square midwestern values, and a future as bleak as the big, ugly kitchen in Sharon’s dismal house in, of all places, Iowa City. Desperate for someone to talk to and fill her spare bedroom, she places an ad for a roommate and gets Robyn, a tough, jaded, pot-smoking Bronx lesbian with a sordid past the word “unconventional” doesn’t begin to cover. Sharon never had a roommate in her life, much less a lesbian roommate. She doesn’t drink anything stronger than Sanka and never smoked so much as a chlorophyll filter, while Robyn carries around a bottle of whiskey and grows her own “medicinal herbs” in pots on the window sill, which she puffs until cross-eyed. Sharon likes to cook, and Robyn is a vegetarian. They both were once married and they each have grown children who live as far away from their mothers as they can get and communicate only by long distance.
Sharon says she’s retired from marriage, but as the play drags on, it becomes pretty obvious that she’s really retired from life. With a familiarity that slowly grows into a cautious but relaxed trust, Robyn reveals her criminal past, which grew from scamming the elderly out of their life savings to stealing automobiles. Sharon finds it all so fascinating that she longs to fill Robyn’s shoes, eager to try everything. Before it’s over, under her roommate’s supervision, Sharon is running a big business baking pot brownies, ripping off the women in her book club, buying assault weapons at the Walmart in Cedar Rapids, and even entertaining the idea of same-sex hanky panky. Robbing and stealing and selling dope, mild-mannered Sharon at last finds a good reason to get up in the morning.
The Roommate, I’m sorry to say, is not very good. Nothing ever happens in it. The ladies talk incessantly but never say anything relevant. It’s only 100 minutes in length without an intermission, but seems much longer. Still, the comic timing of Mia Farrow and Patti LuPone, under the polished direction of veteran Jack O’Brien, provided the elements for a satisfactory evening, and the deafening cheers of the audience the night I saw the play seemed to agree. If nothing else, call The Roommate glamorous summer stock. But sometimes, that’s enough, even on Broadway.
The Roommate | 1hr 30mins. No intermission. | Booth Theatre | 222 W 45th Street | 866-302-0995 | Buy Tickets Here
