In ‘The Roommate,’ rising playwright Jen Silverman follows two 54-year-old women at a crossroads
One is a buttoned-up Iowan divorcee trying to figure out who she is, the other a mysterious and fiery New Yorker who wishes to start over.
They’re the only characters in “The Roommate,” a coming-of-age story, of sorts, about two women in their 50s who help each other embark on a journey that will change them both, if not necessarily for the better.
The dark comedy that churns thoughts of reinvention, boldness and adventure makes its West Coast premiere starting Tuesday at South Coast Repertory’s Julianne Argyros Stage. It’s directed by South Coast Repertory founding artistic director Martin Benson.
“The Roommate” was written by the fast-rising playwright Jen Silverman, who in the past year has seen her plays performed at the Actors Theatre of Louisville, the InterAct Theatre in Philadelphia and — for a workshop — at the Playwrights Horizons Theater School in New York City.
In discussing the premise of the show, Silverman said she has seen a significant number of plays, movies and television shows where the female characters were structurally positioned as the central character but weren’t exactly driving the narrative. Instead, the women were reactive to whatever the male characters were doing.
She also observed that older actresses were playing roles where they were waiting for their children to come home, sitting around talking to their friends about some man or learning that their husbands were sleeping with younger women.
Younger characters were taken seriously, yet mothers and grandmothers played the dull and old-fashioned roles, she said.
“I wanted material to offer them where they were seen as powerful women and not the problem,” Silverman said by phone from New York City. “I really wanted to challenge myself and keep true to these characters, who I wanted seen as strong and were living out dangerous possibilities. What happened were some beautiful surprises.”
Her journey to Iowa, where the play is centered, was a literal one, following from her busy younger years and more recent academic and career moves.
This year, Silverman has upcoming world premieres at the Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company in Washington, D.C., and the Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park in Ohio, as well as a New York premiere at The Playwrights Realm at the Duke.
She’s received grants or fellowships to create new plays through some of the most prestigious theater organizations in the country, including Connecticut’s Eugene O’Neill Theater Center and the Yale Institute for Music Theatre.
Silverman, a Brown University graduate, earned her master’s in fine arts from the Iowa Playwrights Workshop and also studied at the Playwrights Program at Juilliard.
Growing up, her scientist parents relocated the family to countries including Finland, Sweden and New Zealand. Silverman said the moves influenced her work as she grew interested in how people’s worlds and cultures collided.
When she lived in Iowa City for three years during graduate school, Silverman said she enjoyed meeting people who were either transplants like herself or who grew up on family farms and had roots in one place.
After she left, she found herself missing the Midwest and knew she’d write a play centered there.
Indeed, “The Roommate,” set in a sleepy Iowa town, follows two 54-year-old women at a crossroads in life.
Sharon, played by seasoned South Coast Repertory actress Linda Gehringer (“Going to a Place where you Already Are,” “The Language Archive,” “All My Sons”) is chatty, practical, an Iowan and an empty-nester.
She takes in roommate Robyn, played by Tessa Auberjonois (“Mr. Wolf, “A Wrinkle in Time,” “Crimes of the Heart”) to make ends meet and quickly learns that the woman who arrived from the Bronx is holding a lifetime of secrets.
Both are driven to self-transformation and find themselves learning they share more similarities than differences, Silverman said.
“I think everyone wants to start over,” Sharon says at one point in the play.
It’s one of the messages Silverman said she wishes to share with audiences, along with the reminder that it’s not too late to be what you might have been and that second chances do happen.
“It’s never too late to transform your life,” Silverman said. “The possibilities are endless.”
*
IF YOU GO
What: “The Roommate”
When: Jan. 3 to 22
Where: South Coast Repertory, 655 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa
Cost: Ticket prices vary
Information: (714) 708-5555 or visit scr.org.
Twitter: @KathleenLuppi
