Staff Meal Off-Broadway Reviews

Without recourse to literalism, Koogler conjures the quintessence of 2020 — the absurdity and fragility, the aimlessness and mental rabbit holes, waiting and grief, the forgetting how to talk to other people, listening to yourself and thinking I sound like an alien in a person suit. Staff Meal feels like a portal: We tumble through its funny, eerie evocation of the moment that made—is still making—our present, and we come out the other side feeling, for all its ebb toward emptiness, full.

It isn’t hard to see what Staff Meal is about (among other topics, questioning the value of weird theater), but the way it articulates the dance of service and fancy is what lingers on the palate. Koogler stokes our affection for the comforts of civilization but also underscores how fragile they are. I’m no food critic but take my advice: book a table before word gets out.

I send compliments to the head chef: Morgan Green, the director of Abe Koogler’s Staff Meal at Playwrights Horizons. If you're the kind of open-minded patron who might crack a smile to the chef and say "surprise me," Staff Meal delivers. The play ushers audiences into a cozy restaurant space where two lovers meet and then takes us across unknown dimensions. This surreal adventure is like a Rorschach test: Whatever you make of it, its meaning is specific to you.