Postponed Indefinitely: ROOM On Broadway - News & Discussion Thread — Page 2

Think LEOPOLDSTADT is head and shoulders above FAT HAM or any other Play contenders, unless another title opens and proves otherwise.

Danielle Deadwyler, who was so terrific in Till, would be wonderful in this.

Most likely we will find out who is Ma with the official announcement…because there never was one …the BroadwayWorld article was an insider report…

Robbie516 said: "Most likely we will find out who is Ma with the official announcement…because there never was one …the BroadwayWorld article was an insider report…"

Not even an insider report –– it lifted the info from the casting notice.

If LADY DAY can be considered a "play" (one of the most egregious moments of "category fraud" in modern history), they can probably argue this as a play too.

This was my first show after the pandemic. I have never been so uncomfortable in my life. I wanted to leave at intermission, because I didn't know if I could take it. Mind you, I never saw the movie, or read the book. I knew the premise, but didn't know if they got out, etc. The journey of the actress playing Ma has to be so exhausting. It's not a musical. There are some songs that Ma sings to the little boy, but they are not really character driven, plot points.

Alexis Gordon, who played Ma, in Toronto gave an interview in November talking about how doing the Rosemary Clooney role in White Christmas this past holiday season, was a welcome change from her 2 other roles this year (Ma in Room, and The Doctor's Dilemma). She said that during the sexual assult scenes in Room, she reminded herself "I am Alexis Gordon. This isn't actually happening to me. This is happening to my character, whom I'm playing, and this isn't real".

Has anyone heard anything further about this? Especially who will be Ma? I think they will need a big name like a Zendaya

I think this will be great…I thought the movie was phenomenal…especially if they get a big name for Ma…which I think they will since they are not casting it at auditions

How is the role of the little boy handled in this show? Seems like a really heavy play for a 5 year old to perform every night.

QueenAlice said: "Why would anyone want to go sit through this story in a theatre?"

It’s one of my favorite novels and I thought the movie was excellent. I also don’t find the material nearly as heavy as others have stated; I actually find it incredibly hopeful, in spite of the darkness. That’s why *I* would see it.

This is an explanation of the "two Jacks," from the Mirvish review. There's an alternate for Young Jack, but there's also an adult alter-ego:

"There’s also the issue of Jack. The stage version of Room has two Jacks; and for those who’ve not read the book or seen the film, it’s not immediately clear that it’s two versions of the same person, and not two separate children mothered by Ma. Young Jack’s played most nights by the wonderful Lucien Duncan-Reid, a little firecracker, a Paw Patrol veteran, and an actor with nuance and stagecraft beyond his years. Duncan-Reid, a grade four student, is simply magnetic, and when Ma disappears for much of the second act, he carries Room squarely on his four-foot shoulders.

SuperJack, on the other hand, is a more difficult task. SuperJack is… an adult version of Jack? A five-year-old Jack in an adult’s body? Brandon Michael Arrington offers an animated, compelling performance, but it’s a tricky role, which, as eventually becomes clear, represents Young Jack’s older alter ego. SuperJack narrates events as they happen using a five-year-old’s lexicon, and that choice only works for so long before growing tired. While SuperJack offers a lifeline to the actor playing Young Jack (Levi Dombokah for matinees) who is onstage for Room’s two-and-a-half-hour-plus-intermission runtime, the role often feels dramaturgically unnecessary. I’m glad Duncan-Reid and Dombokah have an onstage buddy — I’m not convinced they need one."

forfivemoreminutes said: "TheGingerBreadMan said: "How is the role of the little boy handled in this show? Seems like a really heavy play for a 5 year old to perform every night."

Most of the story is actually told by adult Jack looking back on his younger self. In Toronto they also don’t cast a kid who was believably five - I think he was ten or so. They had one kid doing five or six shows a week (I don’t remember whether it was five or six) and an alternate doing the other two or three."

That also makes sense and makes me feel better about the situation. The Playbill casting notice simply specified that he's 5, so I assumed (perhaps incorrectly) that they were specifically seeking actors that are about 5 years old. It also seems wise to have Adult Jack tell most of it - I wasn't able to discern from the breakdown how large of a role that would be, but that seems much more ethical and could be a very smart storytelling device.