Review: Gloucester Stage Company Cleans Up with Terrific THE GARBOLOGISTS

Workplace relationships have provided the fodder for plays, movies, and television shows for generations.

In recent times, some of the most commercially successful of these stories have included TV’s “The Office,” with its romantic pairing of paper-company colleagues Jim and Pam, the feature film “The Devil Wears Prada” about fire-breathing magazine editor Miranda Priestley and assistant Andy Sachs, and the musical “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying,” which comically tracks the rapid rise of J. Pierrepont Finch and his fellow World Wide Wicket workers.

Playwright Lindsay Joelle’s “The Garbologists” – now being given a first-rate regional premiere at Gloucester Stage Company through July 26 – is a terrifically amusing, emotionally layered addition to the long list of workplace comedies.

And while it’s the story of two New York City sanitation workers picking up trash on their route, in Gloucester it has the smell of success thanks to Rebecca Bradshaw’s realistic direction, which brings forward Danny, a seasoned rubbish man played to perfection by the multi-talented Paul Melendy, and earnest new hire Marlowe, portrayed with considerable heart by the wonderful Thomika Marie Bridwell.  The way the action plays out is akin to the experience of walking by workers in the middle of an animated conversation and wishing you could hear the whole thing. With “The Garbologists,” you can, and this production will make you glad you did.

Melendy, one of greater Boston theater’s most skillful comedic performers – known for his leading roles in shows like Lyric Stage Company’s “The Drowsy Chaperone” and Greater Boston Stage Company’s “The Play That Goes Wrong” – is quirky here, too, but also shows great range as the rough-hewn jokester who’s always talking but doesn’t always say the right thing. An actor’s actor, Melendy employs a vast array of bits to keep Danny in the action, and is a wonder to watch.

He is well paired with Bridwell, in her Gloucester Stage debut, who has rapidly amassed an impressive list of credits with recent roles in Lyric Stage Company’s “Crumbs from the Table of Joy,” The Huntington’s “Joy and Pandemic,” and the Front Porch Arts Collective and Huntington co-production of “K-I-S-S-I-N-G.” The versatile Bridwell knows her way around a side-eye, and also how to convey emotion even in silence.

Joelle – whose “Trayf” was given a solid production at the now-defunct New Repertory Theatre in the fall of 2019 – makes moving points through both hard-working characters, each of whom leads a fraught personal life. While initially Danny and Marlowe seem to be two people with very little in common – he the quintessential working-class Joe, she a double-degree Ivy League alumna – over the course of the single 80-minute act, they reveal the heavy weight they carry from their personal challenges, and begin to form a friendship.

The bond between them will take time to develop, however, because their work is a daily grind that leads them to bicker over everything from trash hunting to who should pay for morning coffee to 19th-century printmaking. And when Danny wants to take some of his trash-heap treasures home with him, freshly trained Marlowe is right there to remind him that it’s against the rules.

While this may be a two-hander, the actors share Kristin Loeffler’s cleverly designed set with a true-to-size rubbish truck. And if the recent press performance was any indication, Melendy and Bridwell have become well familiar with the imposing set piece. Throughout the performance, each had to toss numerous bags of trash onto the truck and not one missed its mark or bounced back.  Like “The Garbologists,” it was an impressive feat to watch.