The Counter – 15 October 2024

The Counter is a play about characters who have allowed their inhibitions, fears, and painful pasts to stagnate their lives. In an unlikely friendship, waitress Katie (Susannah Flood) and customer Paul (Anthony Edwards) formally decide to entangle their lives and confront their deepest secrets. Each is using the terms and conditions of their agreed upon friendship to confront their individual demons, but, in the process, they form a genuine connection that is truly life saving for both of them.

In theatre, film, and other performance mediums, there’s a great adage that if the audience sees a gun it means there will at some point be a gunshot. When Paul first revealed the poison with which he’d like Katie to help him end his life, my immediate conclusion was that Katie was going to use it to end hers. If poison appears at the beginning, at some point, there will be a poisoning? As a social worker, I was delighted to be proven wrong and see both characters find compelling reasons to live in each other. They got each other unstuck from their stagnation. At the play’s conclusion, both of them face uncertain futures in tangible terms— dreams of reigniting complicated past romances are in the air, and even though both characters want to live in the final moment, it’s uncertain how permanent that situation will be. Maybe the next day, they’ll be back together, both having struck out. Or worse, only one of them will have their life work out. The denouement is much like the beginning, with two lives on barely connected trajectories.

The stagnant nature of the characters whose lives felt stuck was apparent in the scenic design and staging in ways that were detrimental to the audience’s attention span. For ~95% of the show, Katie existed stage right and Paul stage left with the diner counter between them. There were large chunks where most of the audience could only see one face; because I was seated house left, I saw Paul’s face for the entire show and frequently missed Katie’s. It affected my ability to empathize with them equally. I found myself significantly more engaged in Paul’s story because in addition to hearing his words, I could see his face clearly the entire show. Though the static set could merely have been practical, it intrigued me to think that maybe I was supposed to stick with one character. Maybe the intention was for the audience to get stuck the way the characters were and open up a little bit at the end. Either way, it was unsatisfying as an audience member to hear two sides of a story but mostly see one. Other impractical scenic elements included the double door and the constraints of actual walls for audience sight lines.

Taken as a whole, The Counter has limited appeal as entertainment because it focuses on the philosophical development of a friendship and contains minimal action. It successfully puts the audience in the headspace of the characters and lets everyone remember a time their life was stuck. The Counter reminds us that we got out of our own moments of stagnation, and that all of those moments led us to this moment and the next one. It is healing and hopeful, but it lacks the escapism of satisfying storytelling because the story’s structure is deliberately crafted to have very few plot points.

I did not attend this performance on a press pass.