Theater review: The Receptionist

by Ed Townley of John Garcia's The Column

The Receptionist, which opened Friday night in the studio space at Water Tower Theatre in the Addison Theatre Centre, is a dense one-hour, one-act play that careens from hilarious, acutely observed workplace comedy reminiscent of The Office on its best nights to a more Kafkaesque take on the banality of evil. More I cannot say without spoiling the surprise. The shift feels more manipulative than intrinsic, but overall the script – a product of several East Coast playwrighting workshops that was first produced two years ago by the Manhattan Theatre Club – marks Adam Bock as a playwright worth keeping an eye on.

In every aspect this is a skillful, polished production; director Marianne Galloway has a fine eye for detail and a strong sense of comic timing. The clean, attractive set designed by Clare Floyd Devries is almost painfully believable to anyone with an office temp background. (Hey – it kept me from waiting tables, at which I was truly dreadful.) Lights and costumes by Laura McMeley and Laurie Land, respectively, are very effective; and the Muzak-like sound design by Scott Guenther ("Is that `Tammy'??" my companion asked incredulously pre-show) is both comforting and vaguely ominous in its perfect blandness.

The four actors who constitute the cast of The Receptionist work together with great ease and comfort. I suspect from the program bios that most, if not all, of them have studied together; and it shows. Randy Pearlman is appropriately competent, friendly and decent as the slightly perturbed supervisor of "the Northeast office" in which the play is set. Robert McCollum is amiable but reserved as the more tightly wound visitor from the Central office, happily married but not averse to a little office flirtation that might not be as `friendly' as it seems. And Jennifer Pasion is hilarious and touching as Lorraine , whose desperate attempts to put a disastrous relationship behind her and move on to something – anything! – new dwarf her interest in the job that sustains her. Her wails of despair sometimes reach levels beyond the ability of the human ear to comprehend actual words, but you'll be laughing too hard to really notice.

And then there's Nancy Sherrard as Beverly Wilkins, the receptionist for the Northeast office. It will be criminal if this performance is overlooked when it comes time for season's-best awards. You will not see a more believable, firmly anchored, dazzlingly skillful and painfully funny performance anywhere. Her total commitment and effortless technique will leave you breathless. Watch (and hear) her gallop nimbly through long, convoluted speeches as she shifts her focus from people in her office space to callers on her headset, veering in less than a heartbeat from a cheerfully professional phone voice to gently nagging wife (her husband is going over budget), consoling mother, aggrieved employee (people keep taking her pens), counselor to the lovelorn and eager sponge for any and all gossip. You know this receptionist. Everybody knows a Beverly Wilkins, and no one could create her on stage with more loving – and deadly – accuracy.

Yes, I could pick a few nits. The play opens with a monologue that doesn't work. The problem is partially in the script – the symbolism is laid on with a trowel -- and partially that neither director nor actor seems to know quite what to do with it, and so have avoided making any choices at all. And, as I mentioned above, the surprise, when it comes, feels more like a gimmick than a revelation. But the warm, helpless laughter engendered by this script and production is no gimmick; it's the real thing.

Addison may seem like a far trip for one hour of theatre. But this production is more than worth the journey. And you need to meet Beverly. You really, really do.