Paul (Anthony Edwards, right) shares a quiet moment with the woman he loves, Peg (Amy Warren), who happens to be married to someone else, in Meghan Kennedy's The Counter.
Director David Cromer has the ability to conjure expansive worlds from small, banal settings: For Meghan Kennedy’s The Counter, the set (designed with remarkable detail by Walt Spangler) occupies only a part of the space available on the stage of Roundabout’s Laura Pels Theatre. As he did with A Case for the Existence of God at Signature Theatre, Cromer encloses the characters in order to open them up. Of course, in order to perform this low-key magic, there must be sharply drawn, deeply human characters to work with.
Paul sits in his usual spot with his usual coffee, with the server Katie (Susannah Flood) working behind the counter.
Kennedy’s play is seemingly a “slice of life”: a small town in upstate New York (not far from the Canadian border), at a diner with one employee, Katie (Susannah Flood), and, for most of the time, one customer, Paul (Anthony Edwards). The Counter begins haltingly, with oddball small talk that is meant to pass for naturalism but comes across as contrived; however, this trend soon vanishes, and the play finds its footing and opens up into rich emotional terrain.
Paul is an insomniac, and Katie greets him in the early mornings with “Well?” to find out how much sleep he got. Paul is alone and isolated and eventually reaches out to Katie for more than customer-server small talk.
Paul: So. What if we decide to become friends. Real friends. Like we tell each other secrets. And we help each other sort through things. And give each other tough talk. What if we tried that? Wouldn’t it make things a little different and wouldn’t that be good?
Katie: Uh…I don’t know.
Paul: Would you consider me your friend as it is?
Katie: I…well… I’d consider you a friendly customer.
Paul: Exactly. But when I come in here in the morning, it’s usually just you and me for awhile so why not really talk? Really learn things?
Katie: Okay.
Katie is more of a cipher to begin with, which is fitting, because the set is arranged so that Paul, sitting at the counter, faces the audience, while Katie is usually seen in profile. But this isn’t a story just of Paul’s crisis with Katie as a sounding board—as their relationship deepens, Katie’s narrative takes equal hold. Flood’s performance is subtle; its power and naturalness sneak up on you.
First, though, Paul makes a proposition, one so extreme that it threatens to derail the play: he has done research on the dark web and acquired a deadly poison, which he gives to Katie and asks her to put in his coffee at a time of her choosing. His rationale:
You know when you read a book and it’s a good book, but you get to page 150 and you just, you get the point, and you just put it down? That’s how I’m feeling. And I would like the last event of my life … to be a surprise. And I’d like it to be in your company.
But Paul has proposed reciprocity in this friendship, sharing secrets, so while Katie reluctantly takes the poison so she can at least prevent Paul from using it himself, she then seeks Paul’s perspective on her own personal baggage. Katie is living what Paul uncharitably refers to as her “give-up life”: she moved from New York City after a close friendship and would-be relationship with a man went awry, though her voice mailbox is full of 27 messages from him. Part of her work with Paul will be listening to these voicemails, voiced by the terrific Will Brill, and then deleting them, thereby fully ensconcing herself in the life she tells herself she wants.
Paul and Katie in the process of forming an unlikely bond. Photographs by Joan Marcus.
While Katie’s past lives on her mobile phone, Paul is surrounded by his, including Peg (Amy Warren), a local doctor; the two are clearly in love, but Peg is married. And Paul also sees his future: the County Home where both his mother and brother died. The bond between Paul and Katie develops via the Groundhog Day–like arrival of Paul every morning in his parka; the boundary between the counter and behind the counter seems unbridgeable at first, and it is surprisingly jolting when it gives way and Paul and Katie inhabit the same space within the small diner.
That the conceit of the poison doesn’t throw the play off the rails is due in large part to Edwards’s and Flood’s utterly believable performances. On the strength of those performances and Cromer’s direction, The Counter skirts clichés and excessive sentimentality, and finds genuine emotion in two confused souls grappling toward some semblance of meaning.
The Counter runs through Nov. 17 at Roundabout’s Laura Pels Theatre (11 W 46th St.). Evening performances are at 7 p.m. Tuesday through Friday and at 7:30 p.m. Saturday; matinees are at 2 p.m. Wednesday and Saturday and at 3 p.m. Sunday. For tickets and more information, visit roundabouttheatre.org.
Playwright: Meghan Kennedy
Director: David Cromer
Sets: Walt Spangler
Costumes: Sarah Laux
Lighting: Stacey Derosier
Sound Design: Christopher Darbassie
