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Written
by
Becky Mode
Directed
and
performed by
Mark Setlock
Based
on
characters
created by
Becky Mode
and
Mark Setlock
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Arts
Theatre
25
October - 15 January 2004 |
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Sometimes
you see a show which is so
funny, so original and so
well performed that you just
want to go straight back in
and watch it all over again.
This is one of those shows.
A fringe, one-man show about
a day in the life of someone
manning the phones in a New
York restaurant may seem a
little off-putting. A little
low-key perhaps. However,
you won't find a laugh-out-loud
funnier, cleverer show in
London.
What is it about cooks and
restaurants that have made
them such resonant symbols
of the time? In the run-up
to Christmas you can hardly
get into a bookshop for the
piles of Nigella, Delia and
Rick Stein, and once TV discovered
Ready
Steady Cook
and Jamie Oliver, a cult was
born. Restaurant critics have
become the Tynans and Leavises
of our time, The Wolseley
and the Ivy the places to
be seen and know about. Despite
Jonathan Meades and AA Gill,
it's all quite gentle, though.
Nothing too vicious. We like
our cooks sweet not sour,
'Saint Delia' not swearing
Gordon Ramsay.
In New York, inevitably, they
do things differently, a bit
more high-octane. Anthony
Bourdain's Kitchen
Confidential
(2000), an insider's look
at the New York restaurant
scene, was the Apocalypse
Now of restaurant-writing.
The film Dinner
Rush
was a minor classic, with
its behind the scenes look
at an upmarket New York restaurant.
And now comes Fully
Committed,
bearing rave reviews and awards
from New York, where it premiered
in 1999.
The story is simple enough.
It's a one-man show, directed
and performed by Mark Setlock,
who plays Sam, an aspiring
actor who's serving time manning
the phones handling reservations
at New York's hottest restaurant.
He also plays the people who
phone in trying to book a
table and the other key figures
in the restaurant. Seemingly,
not much happens. No one gets
killed, there is no sex. But
from a plot which turns around
a young actor trying to get
a second audition at the Lincoln
Center and trying to get off
work for Christmas, Setlock
and Mode create a rich, comic
world and a story full of
twists and turns.
There is one snag. Everyone
who phones in and everyone
else who works in the restaurant
is monstrous. Sometimes hilariously
monstrous, sometimes just
plain 24-carat evil. They
will do anything to get a
table at New York's hottest
restaurant. Anything. It is
a superb evocation of celebrity
culture in which there are
two kinds of human beings.
First, mere mortals ‚ relatives,
old people, a doctor calling
in from out of town, someone
from Kentucky. They are innocents,
people out of touch with the
rules of the game. They are
so innocent they don't realize
it is a game and how hard
you have to play to win. They
think you can just call and
book a table for Saturday
night. They don't realise
you have to book two or three
months ahead for a meal which
will cost upwards from $200
a head. Poor benighted fools,
they don't even know that
Table 31 is the one to go
for, and what you might have
to do to get it.
Then there are the greater
beings, the VIPs. Of course,
as on Olympus, they have their
pecking order. Some are so
marginal as VIPs that no one
is quite sure who they are.
Then there are the movie stars
and supermodels. And up there
with Zeus and Hera, in fact
slightly above Zeus and Hera,
are the ZagatsÖ The way Mark
Setlock pronounces the name
'Zagat' tells you everything
you need to know about these
masters of the restaurant
universe. Zagat's restaurant
survey is, of course, the
New York restaurant-goer's
bible, except a bit more holy.
It's spread to London, but
it's not the same thing here.
Typically, we haven't quite
got the point. Zagat's can
kill a restaurant. Or it can
do what Zeus did ‚ it can
make you immortal, the hottest,
most 'in' place in town. So,
when the Zagats come for lunch
and the maitre de has no note
of their reservationÖ
The early part of the play
lays out the rules. You don't
call yourself. Only dads and
brothers and losers call a
restaurant like this themselves.
Everyone else has PR people,
assistants, minders. Like
Naomi Campbell's PR guy, Bryce,
who calls several times, each
time raising the ratchet of
Naomi's demands.
This is the second rule, the
celebrity rule. They don't
just want a table, not even
the best table, they want
to control everything. Otherwise,
they go elsewhere and you're
yesterday's in-place because
the big names have moved on.
To prevent that happening
you will do anything, or rather
the chef screams at the maitre
de who screams at all of rabbit's
friends and relations until
he gets to the bottom the
heap, yes, even down there,
below the bus-boys and the
water-boys, and someone at
the very bottom of the pecking
order will have to do some
very terrible things to placate
the demands of the biggest
names in town.
The third rule is to know
the pecking order, with all
its fine gradations which
makes 17th century Versailles
look like mere beginners with
their trifling noblesse de
robe and noblesse d'épée.
Call that a hierarchy? Call
that a pecking order? There
are the people who get to
speak to Sam. Then there are
the people who get to threaten
Sam. Then there are the people
who get to speak to the maitre
de. Then there are the people
whose messages get passed
on to Chef. Then there are
the people who get put through
to Chef. Who, for example,
do you think gets put through
to Chef: his mother or his
Ferrari dealer? Then there
are the people who Chef calls
back. And then, at the very
peak of the pyramid, above
the clouds, areÖ the Zagats.
Sam not only has to know the
pecking order, with all its
fine gradations and discriminations,
he has to know how it shifts
from day to day, who he cannot
put through to Chef, who he
can and can't put through
to the maitre de and who must
never, ever be allowed into
the restaurant. There are
those who can be kept waiting,
for hours, like Galician Jews
in a culinary Ellis Island.
And then there are those who
cannot be kept waiting for
the length of time it takes
for a humming bird to think
about flapping its wings.
And then there are those who
the maitre de thinks are simply
too ugly...
Becky Mode's script has created
a fantastic universe full
of PR people and their masters,
like creatures out of Hieronymus
Bosch. And then Mark Setlock
has brought them to life.
Their faces, their voices,
the way they scream, wheedle
and cajole, the threats, the
variety of ways in which they
swear. Here is another pecking
order: whose screams and threats
are the scariest? It's not
just about being rich, or
even about being famous. It's
about who is the scariest.
Of course, the scariest of
all is the person who you
never swears or raises their
voice. They don't have to.
Their very name makes things
happen. Mr and Mrs. Zagaaaaaat,
whose lunch reservations seem
to have been misplaced...
The script is fast and furious.
Mark Setlock manages to switch
between fifty voices at breakneck
speed, creating numerous unforgettable
characters from the anonymous
executive at Paramount to
his agent's assistant, Curtis,
but his greatest creation
is Chef. Sam is Job to Chef's
Jahweh, Ishmael to his Ahab...
Chef is funny and nasty by
turn, and sometimes at the
same time. He is what is so
missing from The
Producers,
a larger-than- life, Carnegie's
Deli triple-decker pastrami
sandwich on rye scale of being.
Fully
Committed
is a joy of a show. The New
York Times called it 'a comic
epic'. They somewhat undersold
it.
David Herman |
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