Pocatello Review

Writer Samuel D. Hunter has taken us through Idaho’s Hobby Lobbys (A Bright New Boise), trucker-newsletter headquarters (The Few), and nursing homes (Rest), not to mention the living environs of a 600-pound recluse (The Whale) in said state, but Pocatello (playing at NYC’s Playwrights Horizons through Jan. 4)—the latest in Hunter’s observant and increasingly prolific ‘write what you know’ Northwest adventure series—has a milieu that just about anyone can relate to: the dreaded chain restaurant. Eddie (movingly played by Grey’s Anatomy star T.R. Knight) is a meek, gay general manager of an unnamed Italian restaurant brand (whose green aprons definitely lean toward The Olive Garden), furiously trying to drum up business after nearby eateries have thrown in the towel. We’re in the midst of Famiglia Week—a promotion in which the staff’s families dine out—which turns out to be more like Hell Week as tensions escalate in the tacky, plastic grape-strewn establishment (the startlingly accurate scenic design by Lauren Helpern practically makes you want to order breadsticks). Troy (Danny Wolohan), an eight-years-in-the-trenches server, is dealing with his senility-afflicted father (Jonathan Hogan) and is on the outs with alcoholic wife Tammy (Jessica Dickey). Their daughter Becky (Leah Karpel) is a downbeat teen activist whom Eddie allows to work part-time as a busser assisting waitstaff, who also include a former meth-head (Cameron Scoggins) and a flighty, young retail vet (Elvy Yost) who seemingly makes up her own rules. Plus, Eddie’s estranged family is fully in tow for the first time in years: an older brother (Brian Hutchison) who despises his smalltown roots, and their skittish, remote mother (Brenda Wehle), whom Eddie desperately wants to be close to again after family tragedy drove them apart years back.