Centerstage - Chicago's Original City Guide

Royal George Theatre Center
1641 N. Halsted, Chicago
Tickets: (312) 988-9000 or through www.ticketmaster.com
Through May 27

Becky Mode surely wrote Fully Committed based on her New York City restaurant experience. And in the playing, the show moves as quickly as the staff in the fictional restaurant must.

Fully Committed, a one-man show starring Bronson Pinchot, is a frenetic tour through a fictional, extremely fashionable Upper East Side eatery. Playing all 30-plus characters in the play, Pinchot gives a multi-layered performance. The central character, Sam, is a reservation operator in the restaurant. All of the other characters appear via phone calls to the reservation line or through the intercom from upstairs in the restaurant itself. Through the course of the evening, we meet Sam's father, a likeable guy from South Bend; the temperamental chef; Jean-Claude, the snooty Maitre D'; Naomi Campbell's annoying (but funny) assistant; and several powerful New York types, among many others.

Ms. Mode has written a play that is at once funny and frustrating. She has created a main character that we identify and sympathize with immediately, and we take the ride with him. What makes the play so delightful is that all of the frustrating characters in the play get their comeuppance, and we are cheering on the inside at the resolution. Fully Committed has been playing for over a year in New York, and has met with great success there. Hopefully it will do the same here, even though the restaurant scene in Chicago is not as ruthless as New York's. The material certainly warrants a long run.

Pinchot manages the show with the energy of a power plant. All his characterizations are fully realized - considering that we are seeing, through him, both sides of a phone call or intercom conversation. Once you are tuned into the style and the rhythm of the show (which does not take long), you at times forget that he is alone on stage.

Fully Committed runs about 90 minutes without intermission, and it goes by very quickly. Hopefully, it will have a life well beyond its posted closing date.