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| Patti LuPone and Mia Farrow in The Roommate |
It certainly gives both ladies ample opportunity to be bad gals, which may have been part of the attraction. What begins as a monetary arrangement when Bronx gal Robyn (LuPone) moves into the Iowa home of Sharon (Farrow) becomes an off-kilter relationship. Sharon, a mousy divorcee soon becomes entranced by the colorful Robyn. (She's a lesbian! She smokes —and grows her own — pot.)
At this point it sounds like it's going to be one of those female friendship stories. But this dramedy, directed efficiently by Jack O'Brien, soon takes an incomprehensibly dark turn: When Sharon learns about Robyn's criminal criminal past, instead of being repelled, she's mesmerized — and wants to get in on the action?!
And we're not talking naughty acts of vandalism or petty thievery — but concocting phone scams to defraud people. Soon Sharon is buying a rifle from Walmart, and any semblance of character development is shot. It's a shame because Farrow, at age 79, imbues a character that, on the surface, could be as dull as Midwestern dirt with heartfelt emotion and the soul of someone yearning for connection.
LuPone, at 75, is fine as Robyn, a woman who longs to right her old mistakes instead of making more of them, but both are hampered by writing that makes these characters increasing two-dimensional as the play's hour and 40 minutes drag on.
Sharon starts off as a sad, pathetic creature and for all that she goes through in the month she lives with Robyn, remains the same as the end. That's an interesting premise, but instead of getting there with real character development, The Roommate takes the easy way out with crime drama cliches. Both Farrow and LuPone deserve better.
