Katie (Susannah Flood) and Paul (Anthony Edwards) explore a new kind of friendship in Meghan Kennedy’s The Counter (photo by Joan Marcus)
THE COUNTER
Laura Pels Theatre
Harold and Miriam Steinberg Center for Theatre
111 West Forty-Sixth St. between Sixth & Seventh Aves.
Tuesday – Sunday through November 17, $49-$112
www.roundabouttheatre.org
Life is about making, breaking, and avoiding connections; all three are explored in Meghan Kennedy’s The Counter, continuing at Roundabout’s Laura Pels Theatre through November 17.
Six days a week, like clockwork, Paul (Anthony Edwards), a retired firefighter in a small upstate town, starts his morning with a cup of coffee at Becky’s café, poured by Katie (Susannah Flood), a younger woman who arrived in town two years before. Paul, who has terrible sleeping habits, sits in the same seat at the counter, where they chat about basic things, like the flu, their diet, movies, and escape fantasies.
When Paul mentions that, on Thursdays, Patricia will miss him if he doesn’t show up at Fiddler’s for lunch — he has his rituals — he says to Katie, “Can I help it if I’m everyone’s favorite customer?” Katie responds, “And here I thought we had something special.”
It isn’t long before they pursue something special, as Paul suggests taking their customer-waitress relationship to the next level, to become real friends. They begin by sharing secrets; Paul tells her that he’s an alcoholic who’s been sober for eleven years, while Katie explains that she has twenty-seven voice mails on her phone from her ex-boyfriend, and that he is the reason why she left New York City and headed way upstate. The messages have clogged up her phone so she cannot receive any more, so she asks if Paul will listen to them with her, then she will delete them.
Both Paul and Katie have to face their past, each giving the other “tough talk” to proceed to the next step. “This isn’t your real life,” Paul says to Katie, who, upon learning of a choice Paul made that she disagrees with but he can still correct, tells him, “That’s a life. That’s a whole different life.”
But things take a serious turn when Paul asks Katie to do something extra-special for him.
Katie (Susannah Flood) and Paul (Anthony Edwards) wonder about what happened to their lives in The Counter (photo by Joan Marcus)
At only seventy-five minutes, The Counter is like a few servings of satisfying, if not great, coffee. The narrative teeters on the edge of Hallmark melodrama, but Kennedy (Napoli, Brooklyn; Too Much, Too Much, Too Many) and Tony–winning director David Cromer (Our Town, The Band’s Visit) make sure the cup never gets stale or overly sweet — or empty, filling it at just the right moment. Scene after scene, Paul enters the coffee shop in his winter coat, shluffs off the cold, and hangs up the jacket, ready to unburden himself to Katie, who wears a plum Becky’s T-shirt, jeans, and an apron. (The costumes are by Sarah Laux.)
Walt Spangler’s set is an inviting counter that juts out at an angle, welcoming the audience into its intimate space. At several points, Stacey Derosier’s lighting focuses on Paul or Katie as they deliver poignant monologues about the other. (However, I was occasionally distracted by reflections in the glass front door.)
Flood (The Comeuppance, Make Believe) is charming as Katie, who is a good waitress but knows deep down that she eventually has to go back to the city. Edwards (Prayer for the French Republic, Children of a Lesser God) is shaky as Paul, alternately overplaying and underplaying the character. Amy Warren (August: Osage County, Act One) makes an impact as the town doctor who knows secrets about Paul and Katie.
One of the central themes of The Counter involves waiting for something new, something different, while not taking action oneself. “Katie, all my life has been about waiting. I waited to become an adult and then I waited for the right girl and the right job and neither of them came and I’m waiting for good weather and good luck and good sleep and they’re not coming. And I’m never surprised,” Paul says. “I’m — 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, maybe the event of my life to be a surprise. And I’d like it to be in your company.”
“I was captivated by the power that savoring a simple cup of coffee can have to connect people and create community,” former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz once said. With more than a few surprises, The Counter succeeds at connecting people and creating community in the Laura Pels.
[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer and editor; you can follow him on Substack here.]