David Jay and I saw The Roommate on Broadway on Sept 17, 2024. We got our tickets early in the summer when it was first announced. A two-person play starring Patti LuPone and Mia Farrow! Wow, sign me up! I've seen LuPone onstage many times (probably over 10 times) but had never seen Farrow onstage. I've been a Farrow fanatic since seeing The Great Gatsby and Rosemary's Baby when I was 14 or 15, and was nutty for her all through her Woody Allen years. He wrote some great roles for her and she rose to the challenge every time. I was eager to see how she did onstage.
The first preview was August 29. The show opened on Thursday September 12 and got a fairly good review in The New York Times. It was announced on Sunday September 15 that Mia Farrow had Covid! And her role would be played in the next performances by Marsha Mason. She would be holding the script, since she had about three hours notice that she'd be playing the role.
Marsha Mason was a major movie presence in the 70s and early 80s. David Jay felt that, like Jill Clayburgh, she never got enough credit for her work. She's done a fair amount of work in the theatre in the last twenty or so years, as an actor and director. She's actually on the staff of The Roommate as Associate Director, what ever that means. So she was familiar with the play and the staging.
I imagine there was some grumpiness in certain circles that understudy Carol Halstead wasn't put onstage in the role but I think the producers rightly thought that a "name" like Marsha Mason would have a better chance of bringing in an audience. I was very disappointed not to see Farrow but since Telecharge didn't appear to offer refunds or exchanges, I decided to get on board with Mason. Ironically I got an email from Telecharge the day of the performance offering to exchange or refund my tickets but I'd already made up my mind.
This was the Broadway premiere of The Roommate, which was written by Jen Silverman and most recently produced at the Williamstown Theatre Festival and Steppenwolf Theatre Company. It's the story of a seemingly mild-mannered woman in Iowa (Mason) who advertises for a roommate. The woman who moves in is a seemingly tough woman moving from the Bronx (LuPone). You see my use of the word "seemingly" - - both characters surprise us about two thirds of the way through the show.
The biggest surprise of the show, and one of the thrills of my Broadway audience life, was seeing these two total pros get flustered, flub big time, yet more or less keep the show on track. The first example of this was very early in the show, when Mason and LuPone were getting to know each other. LuPone told Mason that the Bronx isn't as dangerous as she thinks. Mason said that the only dangerous thing about Iowa was the tornadoes. LuPone said, with a worried tone, "How many tornadoes do you have?" Mason said, "Oh it's not that big of a problem, you go in the basement and wait until it blows over." LuPone said, insistently, "How MANY tornadoes do you HAVE?" Mason took a few seconds and then said, "Just let me find it!" She had gotten lost in her script and started turning the pages back and forth. The audience howled with laughter and applauded like mad. It was so endearing.
Later in the show LuPone got thrown off and went up on HER lines. She tried rewinding a little bit and seeing if she could continue from there. Didn't work. She asked Mason to tell her the next few words. That didn't work. We all laughed a little bit at these flubs. The stage manager (or whoever) came over the PA system in a big booming voice, telling LuPone what her line was. The two actors were a little startled by that and the audience laughed big time. LuPone did what she should have done all along, she stood next to Mason and looked at the script. She said to the audience, "I'm sorry, I have to say my lines IN SEQUENCE." This was now the third or fourth time we'd heard her do the same set of lines and when she got through them and on to the next line we all cheered and she put her fists up in the air, strongman-style.
This might be hard to explain but these blips did not come across as amateurish. It felt like the honest, hilarious struggle of two seasoned pros who are truly doing their best in unusual circumstances. It was thrilling because it was something we hadn't seen before, it was a true example of the miracle of live theatre. Part of the reason it wasn't annoying was because the play itself was a gentle, rather low key comedy with bits of drama. It would not work with Hamlet.
LuPone was, of course, right on target. She knows what she's doing and it's effective. I think this might be the first time I've seen her in a play, rather than a musical. It was interesting to her that her intense diction happens when she's speaking, too, not just when she's singing. To use a word that my friend Karen uses now and then, Mason was winning. We were on her side in a sort of underdog way but beyond that she really put the character across. The highlight of her performance was a silent scene on the porch, when she was looking through her roommate's things. It didn't feel like holding the script was keeping her from connecting with her character and the audience, but this scene stood out precisely because she wasn't holding her script. It had an emotional directness that wasn't as present in the rest of the show.
David Jay thought the ending was a big misfire. I agree that it would have been better with a different ending.
I have to confess that for the first 20 minutes of the show I was watching Mason's performance and imagining Farrow in the role. I got over that pretty quickly, Mason totally won me over. I thought, leading up to the show, that if the play itself was good I might go back and see it again with Farrow. I'm not going to. The play was good but this was such a unique experience, I think an incident-free, no-mishaps performance would pale in comparison.
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