Christine Kahane

Christine Kahane (Robyn)

The Roommate

JANUARY 13 — FEBRUARY 19

Tell us about The Roommate, and what’s so great about this story?

The Roommate is a story about two women in their 50s in a house in the middle of Iowa. What could possibly go wrong? The story could devolve into another Odd Couple because the characters are so vastly different. But the characters, through some of the best writing I’ve come across in modern theatre, reveal and cloak themselves so brilliantly in the storytelling that you’re not sure if you’re not doing Medea at times. The story goes to archetypes quickly – audiences will be able to find themselves in these characters, as they struggle to escape from their lives and come home to themselves, as they seek their emancipation, plunge into self-discovery, and uncover their unique gifts and skills. Oh, and it’s a love story! And, a comedy!

What role are you playing, and what are you most excited about in playing this role?

I play Robyn, running from a past she can’t seem to outrun. I’m most excited about playing against type, and there are many that I could reach for, but the playwright is so skilled, she’s constantly leading me to something more interesting, some little token or talisman to find in the script that says something uncanny and devastating about Robyn, and gives me permission to explore some delicious character nuances. I’m equally enthralled by the way Jen Silverman has written the script—it’s often written in poetic line. A modern love story, written in prose poetry.

What challenges are you facing in this production?

What makes the production challenging are some of the same things that make it exciting. It’s written in poetic line. What’s the clue, where is the playwright taking me the actor? It’s a kitchen comedy that starts to peel back the core of what drives the characters—the ‘why’ they exist. So, around the kitchen table it could become an existential diatribe—which would be deadly, but blessedly not because Bernie Cardell is working some magic with an extremely light touch while these characters tell us what they want for themselves and one another.

In a two-hander of this intensity, playing against the obvious, avoiding falling prey to stereotyping, finding and holding the tension so that the characters have room to transform, is the work – it’s demanding, feels like a marathon and a sprint all at the same time. And I am loving every minute.

What do you hope audiences will take away from The Roommate?

It’s a great question – people sitting in a darkened theatre are brilliant. I’d love for them to feel the opening of possibility for themselves, that mid-life isn’t a downward slide after all, finding humor in what we feel is tragic or regrettable about our lives and how we’ve lived them. Re-invention is possible at any moment, we are made up of a myriad thresholds and gates to walk through or not. Recognizing and making choices, living in the now, being present to, and loving what is—deepening friendships, exploring our humanity, listening in for our own deep happiness. Or just come to laugh at a couple of women philosophizing around a kitchen table.