The Receptionist by Adam Bock
Manbites Dog Theater Company, Downtown Durham
2/12-2/28/09  Yes, you already missed it.

I received the flyer for The Receptionist about 2 months ago and was instantly intrigued by the woman at the desk with pens, phones, and staplers at her command.  I felt a kinship with her as most of my post-college career has been in similar positions.  So I asked Ben, “Can we go?”  He said, “Fine” but qualified it with a loud sigh.  Undeterred, I bought tickets and we went Friday night.

The acting was fantastic.  All the main actors were masters of facial expressions and while I still have no idea why the audience found his opening monologue about fly fishing hilarious, Carl Martin, who played Mr. Raymond, did just fine though he was not quite as appealing as the other three.  Marcia Edmundson, who played the receptionist, Beverly, definitely was the star of the evening.  Her little “hmms” and other noises were essential for conveying the judgmental, yet good-natured character.  She maintained a believable aura of ignorance until the very end, even as she found herself in the harsh light of the central office.

The play itself came across as a riff on that poem attributed to Reverend Martin Niemoller in 1946, which begins with “First they came for the socialists but I did not speak out…” and that has infiltrated the web repeatedly, attaining its own meme-dom in comments and articles everywhere.  In other words, I found the play to be about plausible deniability, in the setting of working for a company without considering just what that company does or how much it may cost you to work there.   It begins as a very simple office piece, with a likable camaraderie between Beverly and Lorraine, the only other employees except for Mr. Raymond, who is out.  Mr. Dart, a very creepy and randy individual comes from the central office to meet with Mr. Raymond and spends most of a morning making small talk with the women.  At the end of the first act, the audience learns that this company tortures people and follows a protocol that must never be wavered from.  Mr. Raymond violates the protocol for a “client” and thus the central office has come to take him away.

In the second act, Lorraine’s exit is done very well.  She repeatedly emphasizes to Beverly a few details that make this a very unusual morning and then makes her escape, with Beverly either none the wiser or just too deeply wrapped up in the notion that this is a normal job.  She never seems to consider that something unusual could happen thus buying herself a one-way ticket to the central office.

To sum up, if the Receptionist comes to a theater company near you, check it out.  I enjoyed it; it was simple, yet quite suspenseful and the actors made a play that could fall flat fly with their stellar energy instead.

3 stars