The Receptionist

Description
The superb Jayne Houdyshell plays the title character, an officious fussbudget, in Adam Bock’s brief, extraordinary dark comedy, a timely allegory about America’s complacency in the horrors being perpetrated in its name. Joe Mantello’s first-rate production captures the play’s combination of naturalistic absurdism and moral dread; Bock’s elliptical piece begins with a long stretch of office comedy, but winds up delivering a stinging reproach to our collective capacity to keep decency on hold.—AF