Katie Finneran finds the humanity, humor, and horror in ‘The Receptionist’

The two-time Tony Award winner, who plays the title character, discusses the fractured rhythm of Adam Bock’s office comedy and the weight of everyday choices.

Summary

• Katie Finneran stars in The Receptionist off Broadway in the title role of Beverly Wilkins
• The two-time Tony Award winner discusses playing a character dealing with her own complicity in a seemingly ordinary but subtly sinister workplace

In the meticulously ordered world of Second Stage Theater’s Off-Broadway revival of The Receptionist, running at the Pershing Square Signature Center through May 24, two-time Tony Award winner Katie Finneran sits at the center of a swirling bureaucratic storm.

Finneran, who earned her Tonys for the high-octane comedies Noises Off and Promises, Promises, is now applying her precision to Beverly Wilkins, the veteran gatekeeper of an unspecified “Northeast” satellite office. Written by Adam Bock and directed by Sarah Benson, The Receptionist initially presents itself as a familiar workplace comedy, complete with ringing phones, office gossip, and the shared ritual of morning croissants. But it pivots into a chilling exploration of complicity and the institutional structures that operate just behind the veil of the mundane.

Taking on a role that has left a lasting mark on the Off-Broadway landscape was a task Finneran didn’t take lightly. “The first person I called when I got the part and started working on it was Jayne Houdyshell,” Finneran said, referring to the Tony winner who originated the role in 2007. “I just got her phone number and I called her, and she was so happy to hear from me. And she’s like, ‘No one will ever know how difficult this is to learn.’ I said, ‘I’m going crazy.’ She said, ‘[Compared to this], Shakespeare is a walk in the park. Easy peasy.’ Because it’s all fractured sentences and it’s all slightly different language, but very simple language.”

Beverly manages 22 distinct phone calls throughout the play, often in quick succession, each with slightly different phrasing: “Can I put you into his voicemail?" "Can I give him a message?" "Can I put your name down?” That fractured language is part of the play’s deceptive quality: Beneath the everyday office jargon is a sense of something darker. The play’s opening moments — a monologue from Beverly’s boss, Mr. Raymond (Nael Nacer), about the “humane” way to kill a fish — casts a shadow over the incoming banter between Beverly and her younger co-worker Lorraine (Mallori Johnson).

For Finneran, the technicality of the role is paramount. She explained she has to be careful not to play the early scenes as broad comedy, as doing so would make the play’s sudden shift into a dark thriller feel like an unearned betrayal of the audience. “I had to toe the line and make sure I was doing the right play,” she said. "You can’t turn the car so fast without getting hurt.”

The arrival of a stranger from the central office, Martin Dart (Will Pullen), accelerates that turn, forcing Beverly to confront the reality of the organization she serves. While the audience may initially see Beverly as a sympathetic figure, the play eventually asks whether she is a victim of her environment or complicit in it. “I think she’s an active participant,” Finneran said. “Even people that do terrible things have people who do their books for them and clean their houses and take care of their children. And you kind of know when something off is happening. Now, do you close your mouth and keep your job? How much do you need your job? How much is your family depending on you?”

Throughout rehearsals, Finneran and the cast have navigated the play’s unsettling resonance with the current American political climate, specifically in how modern hierarchies can pressure individuals into ethical compromises for the sake of survival. “I really enjoy playing characters who make choices that aren’t the bright, shiny or popular ones,” Finneran said. “You have to have real empathy for people and ask: Why do they make these choices?”

Finneran points to the very real, often invisible pressures of maintaining a life (insurance, a mortgage, a family) as the reason why a character like Beverly might look the other way. “It’s easy to say from the outside, ‘How could you possibly do that job?’” Finneran says. “But the way I justify it for Beverly is that her daughter has special needs and needs insurance, her husband can’t get a job, and she has to stay because there are no other options in this town.”

Ultimately, Finneran hopes audiences leave with more than just a night of entertainment; she wants them to sit with the weight of the small, everyday choices we make within larger, more complex systems. “You hope you don’t have to go to a job like Beverly’s, but I understand why people make those choices,” Finneran said. "It really is a choice most of the time. Is it a choice to forgive? Absolutely. Is it a choice to be kind? Always. If we always chose kindness, that’s the golden rule, right?”

Finneran suggests that for people like Beverly who choose to maintain the status quo, a focus on small-scale interpersonal kindness is a shield against acknowledging their complicity in a cruel system. Perhaps Beverly’s decisions are also a mirror for how we choose to interact with the world around us.

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Photo credit: The Receptionist. (Photos by Joan Marcus)