You need to be committed to see Fully Committed. Fully committed to 70 minutes of non-stop laughter. Fully committed to 70 minutes of the vagaries of a up-scale Manhattan restaurant and the turmoil facing the reservationist. Fully committed to 70 minutes of pure pleasure! Cygnet Theater Company has given a joyous gift to San Diego.
For those of us who did our time in the restaurant business, to quote director Sean Murray, this play is "so dead-on."
Fully Committed, the chef's euphemism for the restaurant being totally booked, brings us into the basement work area where Sam books the reservations. (One must immediately go out the next day and find a copy of Debra Ginsberg's "Waiting" for further confirmation that everything we see on stage is the absolute truth.) David McBean, who has many memorable performances throughout San Diego, is Sam. He is also every person he talks to on the phone, the intercom, and the chef's private line. Sam is an aspiring actor (sound familiar?). Reservationist is his day-job, as he goes to auditions usually suffering the indignity of not being cast.
The chef is a stereotypical tyrant (read Anthony Bourdain's "Kitchen Confidential" and "A Cook's Tour"). The staff is alternately nice and nasty, giving Sam many non-reservation-type problems.
Then there are those wonderful customers trying to make a date for dinner or lunch. Tim and Nina Zagat (publishers of Zagat Survey -- San Diego has an edition) show up with no reservation recorded and are left waiting in the lounge. They are just two of a long list of celebs who are making reservations through their functionaries. As the multiline phone lights up, people are put on hold, adding to Sam's already complicated life. He appears to be juggling at least six balls at all times.
McBean not only masters the voices of everybody (20+), he gives us a complete, 100-percent physical characterization of each. He individualizes each call with enough body and oral language to totally define the caller. He stands a bit taller and looks older when he's the chef. He's effeminate when a gay personal assistant calls for his boss. He's Jewish when an uppity secretary calls for her boss. He's an 82-year-old woman complaining about her service. Well, you get the idea.
This is more, though, than McBean's solo show. Sean Murray, who not only directed Fully Committed but also designed the set, gives McBean a lot to do on the stage. McBean doesn't sit at a phone, he moves. The staging definitely shows the deft hand of director Murray. The set is a cluttered basement room replete with cleaning supplies, work schedules, and a warning never to take a reservation from one ex-customer. The room is messed up, but organized in a strange way -- the perfect environment for a man responsible for filling the restaurant above him.
Remember, though, a play starts with the written word. Becky Mode has given the theater a delightful look at the inside workings of a restaurant. After Fully Committed, you will know to never piss off a reservationist (unless you want to sit next to the kitchen) or your waitperson (unless you want a fly in your soup). Mode's words are to cry for, they are to die for, and they are definitely to laugh for.
