Illustration by RACHEL REILICH/Daily Bruin
By Barbara McGuire
Daily Bruin Senior Staff
Getting reservations at a restaurant seems simple, but for some
it’s cutthroat competition.
At some of the most prestigious restaurants in New York, the
competition for tables can be down right deadly. “Fully
Committed,” a comedy written by Becky Mode and directed by
Nicholas Martin, focuses on one such restaurant in which various
tactics, such as large sums of money, are used by the rich and
famous to get reservations.
Currently showing at The Coronet Theater, “Fully
Committed” is a one man show staring Mark Setlock as Sam, an
aspiring theater actor who is working as a reservations clerk at
the most popular four-star restaurant in New York.
While at times things get so crazy it seems Sam needs to be
“fully committed” to an insane asylum, “fully
committed” is really the posh phrase the chef wishes Sam to
use when the restaurant is booked up. Of course, the audience soon
learns that there are ways to get reservations if one has the means
and the desire.
Mode’s first play, “Fully Committed” is
loosely based on real life experiences from her job as a waitress
and from Setlock’s job as a reservations clerk at a hip
restaurant.
“Well, Becky Mode is a friend of mine and she wanted to
write a play about restaurants and I wanted to do a one-man
show,” explained Setlock in a recent phone interview.
 Carol Rosegg Photography Mark Setlock
stars as a reservationist in the one-man play, "Fully Committed,"
which is performing at the Coronet Theatre. “She worked as a
waitress a lot, so she wanted to tell a restaurant story and I
worked as a reservationist in a fancy place,” he said.
“She came up with the idea that we could both do our thing
““ she could write this play for me to do and I could do all
the characters.”
And all the characters is what Setlock does. Though “Fully
Committed” is a one-man show, over 30 different voices can be
heard from the stage as Setlock seamlessly flows from one character
to the next. The entire play takes place in the basement of the
restaurant where Sam interacts with other characters (which are
various versions of his voice) through the phone and intercom
system.
Setlock changes not only his voice, but also his facial features
and body language from one sentence to the next with amazing
fluidity. He literally transforms into different people, such as
Bryce, Naomi Campbell’s gay assistant, a sobbing New York
woman who claims to have made a reservation, and a timid Japanese
woman who insists on spelling her name every time Sam says
hello.
Toward the end of the play things get crazy at the restaurant as
the Zagat’s, a prestigious couple, are forced to wait for a
table and it seems like a miracle that Setlock doesn’t mix up
the voices.
“I don’t know, I guess I don’t have a
choice,” said Setlock of his ability to use the right voice
at the right time.
“I (messed up the voices) a few times when I first started
because I was just learning it, but I haven’t done that in a
long time,” he said. “I know it really well because
when you do something every night, it’s like the pledge of
allegiance or something, you just know it backward and
forward.”
After having performed “Fully Committed” over 400
times between Los Angeles and New York, one could assume that
Setlock knows Sam inside and out. Additionally, through his
performance as Sam, Setlock has won the Outer Critics Award and a
Drama Desk nomination.
Setlock mentioned that creating the voices wasn’t the hard
part, as it is something that comes naturally to him. Making Sam
into a likable, honest character, however, was really a challenge.
In the end, however, Sam is a likable fellow. He starts off the
play already having a bad day, which slowly progresses into a worse
day, until suddenly he comes out on top.
The audience is in tears with laughter, throughout the show as
Sam attempts to calm several irate callers. One of the funnier
moments, (which Setlock admitted is his favorite), occurs when a
senior citizen calls to complain about the price of the food.
Sam is forced to talk to her, as she babbles on and on about how
horrible her meal at the restaurant the previous evening was. She
even goes so far as to tell Sam that when she went to the bathroom
she sat in a puddle of urine on the toilet seat.
That wasn’t the only bathroom problem of the evening. Sam
reaches an ultimate low when the chef forces him to clean up the
women’s bathroom after someone lost control ““ out of
their lower end.
Apparently they couldn’t make it to the toilet, and Sam
has to get rid of the mess because all the bus boys magically
disappeared.
Comical, shocking moments such as these fill the entire play,
providing the audience with non-stop laughs. According to Setlock,
however, “Fully Committed” isn’t all fun and
games: there is something of thematic usefulness which can be
derived from the story line.
“It’s not “˜War and Peace,’ but
it’s also not like the Three Stooges,” he said.
“I think there is a message and that is to look how far
people will go just for status, to get what they want, or how
they’ll treat people.
“It’s about power and the power that these people
have over Sam and the power that he has over them, whether they
want to admit it or not,” he continued. “It also has to
do with the certain way that people treat other people when they
just have a phone relationship, how they don’t treat people
as they’re human.”
Though such thoughts most likely won’t be going through
the audience’s heads during the play, upon reflection, such a
theme is applicable. “Fully Committed” is a funny play,
unlike the standard interpretation of plays as serious ““ this
play is young, upbeat, amusing and, above all, entertaining. It
almost has a really good movie-like quality to it ““ when
it’s over one wishes there was more to come.
“I would like to say that I’m really surprised with
the audiences in L.A., how great they are,” said Setlock of
the reception “Fully Committed” has received.
“Everybody says L.A. is not a theater town and not to expect
too much, but they’ve been so great, not necessarily the
fullness (of the theater), but just the response, just very
generous and I’m happy about it.”
THEATER: “Fully Committed” is playing at The Coronet
Theatre, 366 N. La Cienega Blvd., through Nov. 19, Tuesday through
Friday at 8 p.m., Saturdays at 5 and 8 p.m. and Sunday at 3 and 7
p.m. Tickets cost $25 to $45 and can be purchased by calling (310)
657-7377 or online at www.fullycommitted.com.