A Compelling Receptionist from M&M’s Unmasked

Amelia Michaels, Patti Speight, Tony Broom and Michael Hoeft.
Photo by Nicole Mae Photography

By Tina Arth

Back before extended phone menus made receptionists obsolete, actual humans used to populate front offices, take messages, screen and direct calls, and perform hundreds of other once-cherished clerical functions, including the always off-putting “Please hold” and the usually genial “Can I put you through to his voice mail?” Playwright Adam Bock’s quirky, Orwellian The Receptionist uses this kind of clichéd, comfortingly banal office setting as the backdrop for a terribly funny (in Act I) and equally troubling (in Act II) little allegory about, as the program’s cover reveals “the consequences of complicity with evil.”  It’s exactly the kind of production Tigard’s Mask & Mirror Community Theatre needs for its “Unmasked” series at the tiny Tualatin Heritage Center, where small, edgy productions can provide riveting entertainment to sophisticated audiences. Director Tony Broom’s vision is realized beautifully by his tiny four-person cast (including Broom, who plays a smaller but utterly pivotal role) – with only a two week run and a small house, I suggest you buy tickets asap.

It’s impossible to give any meaningful synopsis that won’t spoil the show’s gut-punching twist, but some exposition will at least set the stage. The show opens with an odd monologue where Mr. Raymond (Broom) muses in slightly creepy detail about his distaste for hunting and his love of fly-fishing. The stilted language and delivery in the prologue evoke the image of a man on the edge, reminiscent of Nick Adams in many Hemingway stories, without really giving the audience any clear vision of what’s to come. The lights then come up on an utterly ordinary office setting, dominated by Beverly (Patti Speight), the lovably frazzled, gossiping and motherly receptionist who reigns supreme over her telephone, desk, plants and pens. Every time the phone rings, she trills out “”Northeast Office” before either transferring the call to the voicemail of her absent boss, Mr. Raymond, or resuming her all-important conversation with her friend Cheryl Lynn about the perils of dating married men. When co-worker Lorraine (Amelia Michaels) rushes in, late and at best half-dressed for work, Beverly adds to her weighty job description by counseling Lorraine about her self-absorbed ex, ordering a birthday cake for Mr. Raymond, and fussing over an over-priced tea cup and a cute birthday card – all of the stuff of the most ordinary of offices. The biggest excitement of the day is the unexpected arrival of Mr. Dart (Michael Hoeft) from the main office – Dart is young enough and attractive enough to send Lorraine rushing into her office, from which she emerges moments later dressed to kill and dripping with flirtatiousness that is more than welcomed by the (married, of course) newcomer. Beverly, in perfect momma fashion, has reassured Mr. Dart that his four-year-old son’s paste eating is no big deal, because everybody eats paste. By the time Mr. Raymond arrives at the office, we feel like we know these characters – until Mr. Raymond mentions a small wrinkle in his morning’s work that throws everything off and sets up a starkly different second act.

Speight is perfect as Beverly – warm, efficient, guileless, and cheerful as she counsels and comforts her friends, family, and co-workers while fiercely defending her cherished stash of pens. Though none of her dialogue is specifically funny, she draws an endless series of (first-act) laughs with her intonations and expressions – the play really rises and falls on our attitude toward Beverly, and Speight’s Beverly is as loveable as they come. Michaels delivers a cute, flighty, flirty Lorraine whose angst and moral relativism give her character engaging depth, and Hoeft’s vaguely smarmy charm, puzzling at first, does a fine job of setting up the truth about his second act role. As the frequently unseen Mr. Raymond, Tony Broom tries for nonchalance about his departure from the protocols of his job, but undercurrents of tension and despair permeate the performance.

My one complaint is that the show ends abruptly, leaving the audience with a host of emotions and no time to process them. I would suggest a brief audience talk-back session after each performance, which would allow us and the actors to decompress before going back to our own often comfortingly banal lives. A reasonable alternative is to go with a friend so you can talk over the show on the road home, or (better yet) over an adult beverage in any of several nearby eateries.

Mask & Mirror’s The Receptionist  is playing at The Tualatin Heritage Center, 8700 SW Sweek Drive, Tualatin, through Sunday, January 28, with performances at 7:30 on Fridays and Saturdays, 2:00 on Sundays.