Steppenwolf has The Roommate by Jen Silverman directed by Phylicia Rashad and starring Ora Jones and Sandra Marquez.
The script is nothing special, and I’m not fond of two-handers at all. But it felt refreshing and heartening to see a cast comprising “two middle-aged women” carry a show. (The descriptor comes from the playbill somewhere.)
Both are well-known in Chicago. I especially have tried to see Marquez, after her performance in Court's Agamemnon. Clytemnestra must be the role of a lifetime, but an actor takes what they can get, and from an actor’s perspective this is not bad.
What I didn’t like about it? Both characters were inveterate (or invertebrate) liars and scammers with no distinguishing redemptive characteristics. To be sure, Macbeth and his Lady are awful personages; but they are morally complicated and talk about it in interesting ways. Plus there is some action and resolution to the play; this had none of that.
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