Theatre in Review: The Roommate (Booth Theatre)I've never seen this before: The Roommate begins with a curtain call. Mia Farrow and Patti LuPone, the entire cast of Jen Silverman's prairie comedy, enter, their names projected on Bob Crowley's airy farmhouse set. Of course, the audience goes wild. Theatre legend has it that Bette Davis, appearing in The Night of the Iguana back in 1961, broke character and acknowledged the audience on her first entrance; Farrow and LuPone simply stand there, letting the applause wash over them, before getting down to business. It is a supreme moment of anticipation, and, as it happens, is the high point of the evening. Silverman's play offers little more than an oddball pairing of sensibilities, the most glaring pair of opposites since Neil Simon had Oscar and Felix take up housekeeping. Farrow is Sharon, divorced, retired, and, in her mid-sixties, living, according to the script, in Iowa City -- although the set is placed against a plain so vast and empty that you half-expect a troupe of dancers to launch into the Oklahoma! dream ballet. Sharon is so innocent it's hard to believe she has ever gotten past the nearest soybean patch. Presented with a carton of almond milk for her coffee, she treats it as something akin to poison. She soothes her harried soul with her favorite CD: "Dominique," by The Singing Nun. She insists her son, an unmarried dress designer living in Park Slope who "dates" a lesbian, is, most assuredly, not gay, adding, "Probably most of [his friends] are. I think most New Yorkers are." Lost inside an oversized pair of overalls, sporting blonde braids that Pippi Longstocking might envy, and delivering her lines in a gee-whiz tone that recalls Little Orphan Annie, Sharon is a girl in autumn, having grown old without growing up. LuPone, in a black leather jacket and sunglasses, looking lost while en route to a punk rock club, is Robyn, a figure of mystery. She admits to previous careers as a potter and a slam poet but, otherwise, deftly deflects questions about her past. She is prone, however, to comments that zero in on the cold facts of life. Allowing that she has a daughter, she says, "Our kids don't have to like us; they just have to survive long enough to become us." Turning life coach, she tells an afraid-of-dating Sharon, "You are actually younger than most US presidents. You are young enough that, if you were a president, you would be a young president." More tantalizing -- to Sharon, anyway -- are the "medicinal herbs" Robyn enjoys smoking. ("Herbs only become drugs when a capitalist economy gets involved," she insists.) And then there's the matter of the hundred-or-so driver's licenses in Robyn's possession, each with a different name. Surely you can see where this is going: Robyn, on the lam from her con-woman past, awakens Sharon's nascent rebellious spirit. (Learning of her roommate's larcenous ways, she asks, in wonderment, "Are you the Nigerians?") Soon, she is proving adept at phone-call scams, peddling marijuana to her fellow book club members, and delving into the Harvard Business Review, looking for tips on expanding her mini-crime empire. Her ambitions spread so quickly that Robyn, trying to stay on the QT, becomes alarmed; clearly, something's got to give. This, in a nutshell, is the slender plot of The Roommate: "There's a great liberty in being bad," each character notes at different points. The dialogue rarely glitters but Farrow and LuPone, under Jack O'Brien's detail-perfect direction, are so adept at rapid-fire crosstalk that even so-so passages like the following take on the sheen of pure vaudeville: Sharon: I'm a big cook, I love to cook. You said you cooked? Robyn: I cook, sure. Sharon: Okay! Okay. Well, we can divide up the refrigerator or the pantry shelves depending on sort of what and when you cook. Robyn: I'm a vegan. Sharon: Okay! Okay... Robyn: No animal products. Sharon: Okay! So like... no meat... Robyn: Nope, no meat. Sharon: Or eggs. Robyn: That would be an animal product. Nichols and May, it isn't, but the combination of Sharon's nervous, people-pleasing manner, and Robyn's faintly sullen, low-balled dismissals creates a distinctive comic melody. Much of The Roommate is strictly formulaic, however, being filled with the bonding devices we've seen in so many just-us-girls plays and films: The pot-smoking scene, when Sharon, supposedly hilariously, gets high for the first time; the ladies getting down and dancing to rock music in the kitchen; and the surprisingly sentimental wind-up, in which Sharon gets on the phone and bares her soul to...God. The Roommate is slightly more astringent than the average buddy comedy, but there's so little to it that you fear it might curl up and blow away, like a piece of cornsilk on a windy afternoon. The production is ultra-professional in all respects, including Crowley's costumes; Robert Pickens and Katie Gell's hair, wig, and makeup; Mikaal Sulaiman's sound; and the many colorful time-of-day looks supplied by lighting designer Natasha Katz. If you have any affection for its stars, The Roommate will provide a fair amount of fun. Farrow is a treat, whether adopting a French accent to pose as a fundraiser for Senegalese orphans or noting that one of her pot-addled book club ladies giggled her way through a tome about child soldiers. LuPone -- alternately playing down her criminal past ("I mean, I did just a little bit of auto-theft") or displaying a hundred-and-one shocked responses to Sharon's flagrantly fraudulent phone manner -- is peerless, as always. But be aware of what you're getting into: If you don't mind its essential thinness, Silverman's play provides a pleasant excuse for stargazing -- and, at least, it offers two stars who honestly earn their preshow applause. --David Barbour 
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