Outside, the world is breaking apart. But in here, a group of lonely city dwellers gather to find comfort and connection. Abe Koogler’s Staff Meal is a kaleidoscopic comedy about a mysterious and beautiful restaurant, where the food is delicious, the service is warm, and some strange power keeps the darkness at bay. You are safe here – at least until closing time.
Without recourse to literalism, Koogler conjures the quintessence of 2020 — the absurdity and fragility, the aimlessness and mental rabbit holes, waiting and grief, the forgetting how to talk to other people, listening to yourself and thinking I sound like an alien in a person suit. Staff Meal feels like a portal: We tumble through its funny, eerie evocation of the moment that made—is still making—our present, and we come out the other side feeling, for all its ebb toward emptiness, full.
I send compliments to the head chef: Morgan Green, the director of Abe Koogler’s Staff Meal at Playwrights Horizons. If you're the kind of open-minded patron who might crack a smile to the chef and say 'surprise me,' Staff Meal delivers. The play ushers audiences into a cozy restaurant space where two lovers meet and then takes us across unknown dimensions. This surreal adventure is like a Rorschach test: Whatever you make of it, its meaning is specific to you.
2024 | Off-Broadway |
Playwrights Horizons Off-Broadway Premiere Production Off-Broadway |
Videos