Review: The Roommate by En Vivo
by Donna Provencher
En Vivo’s The Roommate demonstrates that great theater can come in small packages.
Few theater artists have both the creative vision to produce exceptional work and the business savvy to attract audiences to see it. Paul Padilla, founder and artistic director of En Vivo! Theatrical, has both.
His small but ambitious company consistently punches well above its weight class. In large part, that’s because Padilla marries strong artistic choices with smart marketing. The results speak for themselves.
Earlier this year Padilla’s productions of Our Town at New Braunfels’ Brauntex and The Shark Is Broken at Seguin’s Palace Theatre earned enthusiastic praise. His directing ability is clear. But his inventive partnerships with local businesses and venues showcase serious entrepreneurial chops, too.
Some emerging theater companies seem determined to demonstrate just how much money can be spent on elaborate sets and theatrical spectacle in an unsubtle bid for awards season. Padilla offers a refreshing reminder that artistic excellence has less to do with budget than deft direction and thoughtful dramaturgy. Money can buy a more impressive set. It can’t buy the sharp artistic judgment Padilla consistently demonstrates.
Jen Silverman’s The Roommate, presented Oct. 16–18 at Del Webb at Veramendi in New Braunfels, was another example of En Vivo doing exceptional work with creative staging rather than with extravagant resources.
The premise of the piece seems simple: Sharon is a recently divorced Iowa woman whose life has been defined by marriage and motherhood and Midwestern predictability. She takes in a roommate, Robyn, a mysterious New Yorker whose colorful past couldn’t be more removed from her own. It starts off as an odd-couple comedy about an unlikely friendship. But it evolves into a surprisingly moving examination of reinvention, regret, and the revelation of who we might become when we’re finally free to choose.
Marcia Kelly is an absolute delight as Sharon, bringing a wonderfully endearing, vaguely Joan Cusack-adjacent energy to a woman both bewildered by the world and frustrated by how little of it she’s experienced. Kelly makes Sharon’s growing appetite for adventure as funny as it is poignant. She beautifully captures the disorientation of a woman who’s spent so long fulfilling everyone else’s expectations that she has no idea what to do when those expectations evaporate.
Jennifer Heitmeyer delivers a powerhouse performance as Robyn, the mysterious urban transplant who introduces her new friend to marijuana, criminality and the possibility of a life drawn outside the lines.
Although she's a questionable influence, Robyn emerges as fully human and sympathetic. Heitmeyer gives her a complex arc: her vulnerability is clear behind her practiced worldliness. Robyn exhibits painful, hard-earned self-awareness. She's someone who understands the consequences of her choices even when she can’t always stop herself from making them.
Both performances are subtle and moving. An easy chemistry makes the growing connection between these two very different women believable. And Silverman’s script gives them plenty to explore. Both characters discover,in real time,that the freedom to reinvent yourself doesn’t always come with a manual about which direction to take.
For conventional Sharon that journey includes a belated exploration of her sexuality and an awareness of possibilities she never got to explore. The play also examines the complex relationships between estranged parents and their adult children, and how our identities get tangled up with all those we’ve loved and lost.
Perhaps the most compelling question director Padilla explores is this: What responsibility do we bear toward the people we care about? If we recognize we’re a destructive force in someone’s life,and can’t stop ourselves from causing harm, isn’t the most loving thing we can do is remove ourselves from the equation? And how easily can a well-intentioned adventure become a mess from which we can no longer extricate ourselves? At what point does a new persona we’ve adopted tbecome just another identity we’re trapped inside?
Those are heavy questions for a piece that spends so much of its run time making us laugh. Padilla and his performers navigate them smoothly without sacrificing either the humor or the emotional heart.
The production’s sound design was charming and impeccably executed, while the decision to stage the action in an actual kitchen at Del Webb was clever as heck. The real-life domestic setting lent an intimacy to a story that relies almost entirely on the evolving relationship between its two characters.
That’s another area where En Vivo excels: creating an experience around the performance.
Audiences enjoyed live pre-show music, fabulous catering, and the opportunity to explore the Del Webb properties before the show. It’s a thoughtful approach that benefits both the theater company and local businesses and community partners. It also offers patrons something more memorable than a conventional ticket-and-a-seat experience.
Padilla is an insightful director who understands character and the emotional core of a great story. He’s also a walking master course in entrepreneurship: how to select compelling material, find the right venue, and attract an audience to come see it.
That combination of artistic discernment and commercial savvy is rarer than youmight think. Especially rare in the San Antonio metropolitan area, where excellent creative work often goes unnoticed because nobody can figure out how to get people through the door.
En Vivo! Theatrical is a wonderful reminder that great theater isn’t confined to metropolitan arts districts or companies with lavish budgets. A little ingenuity goes a long way, and some of the most exciting new work in Central Texas is happening outside San Antonio and Austin city limits.
If you haven’t yet treated yourself to an evening with En Vivo, I highly recommend remedying that. The work is excellent, and the hospitality is top-notch.
Most importantly, En Vivo understands something too many other local theater companies overlook: It's not enough to make art worth seeing. You have to make people want to see it.
The Roommate
by Jen Silverman
En Vivo
