The Devil in the Details

At first glance, Adam Bock's "The Receptionist," which opened last night at the Manhattan Theatre Club, is just one more Dilbert comedy. There's the receptionist, bossy Beverly, manning the phones; there's her neurotic co-worker Lorraine, stopping by for gossip and coffee — and a quick flirtation with the swaggering Mr. Dart, a visitor from the central office.

For its first half-hour, "The Receptionist" might be a close cousin of the BBC version of "The Office," well-stocked with the genre's trademark pathetic banter and inappropriate remarks. Then Beverly and Lorraine's boss, Mr. Raymond, makes a casual comment that sucks the oxygen out of the room.

That single remark — made in the dry, expository manner of a clinician — yanks "The Receptionist" out of sitcom territory and slams it down on "Manchurian Candidate" turf. Instantly, those mundane office details are recast in a chill, sinister light: Now the long rows of files, the flood of phone calls, and the computerized schedule of client meetings are the instruments of a cruel machine.

In the end, "The Receptionist" fails to deliver on the promise of that eerie, pregnant moment. Running a brisk 80 minutes, Mr. Bock's play ends before it has tapped the full richness of its premise. Yet slender as it is, "The Receptionist" gets under your skin. Under Joe Mantello's able direction, its poison creeps slowly into your veins and lingers, with no catharsis in sight.

Mr. Bock's subject — the bureaucratization of gruesome acts, what Hannah Arendt called "the banality of evil" — is nothing new. What Mr. Bock adds to that old story of unquestioning obedience is texture and specificity. It's as if those anonymous button-pushers of Stanley Milgram's infamous electroshock experiments have suddenly been given names, haircuts, and personalities.

At first there's something touching in the way Beverly (Jayne Houdyshell), a dowdy wife and mom who collects rare teacups, counsels the younger, lovelorn Lorraine (Kendra Kassebaum) to hang up on her no-good ex. In retrospect, though, that authentically-drawn co-worker friendship produces a queasy feeling: How can they seem so like us, yet do what they do?

The work from all four actors (the others are Robert Foxworth and Josh Charles) is expertly calibrated. But it is Ms. Houdyshell's mesmerizing portrayal of Beverly that anchors this production, literally and figuratively. From the moment she first appears, she remains rooted at center stage, the hub around which the office hums. Heavyset and middle-aged, sporting a bright aqua shirt over her loud print blouse, Beverly rules the roost, dispensing coffee and pens and dispatching calls with the unflinching authority of a born headmistress. She has a high opinion of her own character, and enjoys doling out moral advice in the honeyed yet firm tones of a daytime talk-show host.

It is Beverly's voice — at times as soothing as Muzak, at times raspy and cutting — that establishes the two moods of "The Receptionist," which moves with deliberate uneasiness between extremes of ennui and viciousness. David Korins's spare, angular set echoes that contrast, with the long lines of its shelves and vertical panels evoking both office doldrums and prison bars.

Mr. Mantello stages the action around Beverly's vast circular desk, repeatedly drawing the characters in as if by a strong centripetal force. As the tension builds in a series of second-half plot twists, Mr. Mantello refuses the invitation to hysterics and keeps the characters rooted in anxious, barely contained dread. And though the play's final climactic moments with Beverly alone onstage don't build to their intended magnitude, the fault seems to lie with Mr. Bock's decision to abruptly cut out at a crucial juncture in his narrative.

Mr. Bock's writing is so assured here that one wishes he had developed "The Receptionist" further. In part, its slightness feels intentional — a playwright's attempt to force an audience to grapple with a contemporary moral outrage in the dosage in which it is typically delivered — a sound bite, or yet another news article — rather than in some cathartic grand confrontation between good and evil.

Still, even within its chosen parameters, "The Receptionist" feels excessively subtle, as if Mr. Bock had come to the threshold of something truly terrifying and — unlike his characters — stopped just shy of crossing it.

Until December 16 (131 W. 55th St., between Sixth and Seventh avenues, 212-581-1212).