STAGE WEST: "The Counter" at Moxie Theatre

Kate Rose Reynolds in "The Counter."                                                       Photo courtesy of Moxie Theatre

            Meghan Kennedy’s “The Counter” is a little play – 75 minutes’ long, a cast of 2 … well, 2.5 – that serves up a big question: What makes life worth living?
            For Paul, the first customer every morning at the Main Street Diner located somewhere in a nothing-ever-happens town in Upstate New York, the question is moot. A retired firefighter beaten down by loss and grief and mired in ennui, life for him is without surprises and, though he's healthy and affable enough, he’s ready to die.
            The problem for Katie, who presides at the diner, robotically  brewing and pouring coffee each day, is that Paul wants her to help him end it all.
            This would seem at once too much and not enough conflict for a play of this brevity, but somehow the timing’s just right. Credit for that goes to Kennedy of course but also to Moxie Theatre, which is staging “The Counter” (and doing so after having late in the game postponed producing Mara Nelson-Greenberg’s “Do You Feel Anger?”) A primarily two-hander with one character seated 90 percent of the time can for audiences feel like slow going. But director Desiree Clarke Miller clearly appreciates the rhythm of this story, a narrative that should feel at its basics like a quiet morning routine re-enacted time after time.
            Clarke Miller also has two pro’s to work with: Kate Rose Reynolds plays Katie, the woman behind the counter, with all the world weariness and disillusionment (and more, as we learn later) requisite of someone going through the motions at a nowhere diner; and Mark Stevens playing customer Paul, so seemingly normal that his fatalistic request feels as casual as asking for a refill.
           Kara Tuckfield arrives late in the going as Dr. Peg Bradley, a married local with whom Paul surprisingly has had a fling, but – no fault of the actor – this cameo could have been confined to exposition. It’s as if playwright Kennedy decided “Hmm. Maybe I need to bring in one more character.”
            There’s also an unseen “character” in “The Counter”: the recorded voice of Gil (provided by Alex Guzman), a “friend” of Katie’s from the town she fled who’s left a whopping 27 voicemails on her phone. Talk about somebody carrying a torch.
            The fact of those unlistened-to voice messages is revealed once Paul takes his and Katie’s strictly-business relationship to the next level: He suggests they trade secrets, something friends might do. His is a corker: He desires to die and wants her to poison him by dropping something lethal, on any given morning that she chooses to do so, into his cuppa joe.
            This is where “The Counter” premise-wise ventures into “Twilight Zone” territory, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. What grounds it in genuine human interaction moving forward is Reynolds’ thoughtful performance. In her hands, Katie becomes more and more a wholly complex woman, a lonely soul who has been secreting regrets and what-if’s as well as the emotional scars of something far more personally intrusive than a busted relationship with the unseen Gil.
            The scene where after a quarrel one morning Paul doesn’t show up as usual and Katie is left to wonder, even fear whether he is still alive is as wrenching as anything in the play. Without a word Reynolds shows Katie’s dread, anxiety and despair. Her hunching over the counter seemingly unable to move conveys it all.
            Stevens’ role does not call for as much layering, though he’s certainly believable as Paul, a good man who’s kind of given up.
            When it looks as though Katie and Paul have finally agreed that they’re actual friends – you knew a hug was coming – that’s believable enough as well.
            The poison-me device, though, is more credible to me than is Katie’s ultimate decision re: the Gil we don’t even know (and I’m not sure if she truly knows him either). But people do funny things, whether they’re in love, in like, or something in between.
            The Main Street Diner crafted by scenic designer Julie Lorenz is just as cozy and corny as you’d expect in a little town on freezing mornings. There’s much attention to detail: the chalkboard scribble touting the breakfast special; the storefronts of the quaint town street visible through the window; the old coat rack where Paul hangs his jacket each morn.
            The appeal of the neighborhood diner isn’t so much lost on me as foreign to me. I’m a big-city boy so I don’t have a lot of experience with such places. But in spite of the interpersonal drama going on at the one in “The Counter,” I could see myself popping in if it was chilly out and I craved a hot cup and a donut.
            Make mine with milk, please, and hold the sugar.
            “The Counter” runs through June 1 at Moxie Theatre in Rolando.