Quite a few also insist on getting the right table. Yet, just about everybody who calls - from celebrities to wannabes - is frantic to confirm a reservation that night, that weekend, or later that month. The restaurant is so trendy among the elite that its weekends are booked months ahead.

(It seems that Sam isn’t assertive enough.) Calls from a fellow actor or to his agent fill in the gaps of his faltering career. Meanwhile, his father and brother call, hoping Sam can get away for Christmas. Other co-workers ignore him, use him or abuse him. Jean-Claude, the French maitre’d, makes imperious demands, while the British Cockney restaurant owner shouts at him and takes him for granted. Yet, just about nothing he does or says is enough to satisfy most of the patrons or co-workers he talks to on any of the phones he must constantly hustle to answer. When Sam Peliczowski, a New York actor hoping for a call-back from Lincoln Center, walks down to the basement office of the restaurant to discover the phones ringing and no one else there, he jumps in to help. Using his remarkably varied voices, gestures and mannerisms without any costume changes, Horst paints a convincing portrait of several classes and slices of modern Manhattan life. Metaphorically moving from tasty appetizers to a delicious dessert without ever truly feeding theatergoers a substantial main course, Mode creates - and Horst illuminates - a dizzying but dazzling kaleidoscope of almost 40 roles. Jeff Horst plays all the roles with thrilling dexterity and detail in Becky Mode’s off-Broadway comedy about a harried day in the life of a struggling actor who must man the reservation lines at one of Manhattan’s hottest restaurants.Īlthough not quite a full-fledged play, the 100-minute one-act offers great potential for a tour de force performance. Sometimes, all you need for an entertaining evening of theater is the right casting.Ĭase in point: CATCO’s amusing and engrossing area premiere of Fully Committed, which opened last night in the Riffe Center’s Studio Two Theatre.

Fully committed actor