Review: THE COUNTER at The Umbrella Arts Center

Everyday restaurants and roadside diners are as popular as settings for plays and musicals as the blue-plate specials on their menus – “Come Back to the Five & Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean,” “Pump Boys and Dinettes” “Superior Donuts,” “45 Seconds from Broadway,” “Clyde’s,” and “Waitress,” to name but a few.

If this year is any indication, Concord’s Umbrella Stage Company has a particular affinity for the genre, having just this spring presented a flavorful production of the 2001 stage musical “The Spitfire Grill” and now, through November 23, serving up the bittersweet Meghan Kennedy play “The Counter,” which delves into the burgeoning friendship between a waitress and a regular customer at a seemingly always quiet diner.

Commissioned by New York’s Roundabout Theatre Company, the play had its world premiere one year ago this month at the Laura Pels Theatre in a production starring Anthony Edwards, Susannah Flood, and Amy Warren. The Umbrella Stage is now giving the drama its Boston-area premiere under the naturalistic direction of Alex Lonati, with Margaret Clark as Katie, a waitress, “ranney” as her most loyal customer, Paul, and, in a brief appearance, Maureen Keiller as Peg, a woman from Paul’s past.

It is clear from the outset that Katie and Paul have loneliness in common, but she’s cautious about moving toward friendship. Paul is less so, asking somewhat insistently, “What if we decide to become friends? Real friends. Like, we tell each other secrets. And we help each other sort through things. And give each other tough talk. What if we tried that?”

Paul May be on a mission to land a trusted confidante but Katie is at first hesitant to be that person, before deciding she, too, could use a friend. Soon, Katie is spilling all the details of a relationship she escaped in New York City, including that she still has 27 voicemail messages from the man saved in her cellphone. Paul’s sharing of secrets has him making a big ask – make that a very big ask – of his newfound friend.

With this slight one-act 75-minute play, Kennedy makes a big ask of audiences. Should we invest genuine emotion in these characters, or are they people we just observe from a distant table in this restaurant before paying the check and moving on? Their stories are compelling, but the writing lacks the depth to flesh them out fully.

What makes this production worth pulling up a chair, however, is the excellent cast led by “ranney” – so memorable in last season’s Actors’ Shakespeare Project production of August Wilson’s “The Piano Lesson – as the affable but troubled Paul, subsumed by the feeling that he’s done with everything. Clark is terrific, too, as the nervous but steadfast Katie, who spends hardly one single moment completely still. And while there is only a dollop of Dr. Peg Bradley, Keiller plays her for all she’s worth.

In the Umbrella’s Black Box Theater, “The Counter” is given great authenticity by scenic and properties designer Julia Wonkka, whose set includes an ample counter with bakery goods display case, tables complete with silverware folded in paper napkins, and a black-and-white checkerboard floor that spills into the audience. Just one quibble: no waitress worth her salt would try to fill standard shakers with kosher salt. The granules are just too big.

Similarly, this play is just too small for the big ideas and emotions Kennedy wants to pour into it.