Fully Committed
Ensemble Theatre
★★★
Trigger warning: unanswered phones, being put on hold, being told your booking to Sydney’s most exclusive restaurant has somehow disappeared.
If any of the above causes you anxiety, you might find Ensemble Theatre’s latest production, for one performer and multiple phones, painfully funny.
Fully Committed is like a modern day version of Goldoni’s classic, The Servant of Two Masters, except that in this case, it’s one servant to 30 masters, and they’re all played by the same person. Contessa Treffone gives a spectacular performance as the ill-used Sam, manning the phones in the back office of a prestigious Sydney restaurant, and voicing every incoming caller.
Contessa Treffone delivers a virtuoso turn as the harried Sam in Fully CommittedCredit:Prudence Upton
Sam is long suffering and eager to please, handling an impossible job with a patience that is hard to believe. The callers are by turn demanding, vacuous, confused, rude, creepy and, very occasionally, on her side. It’s a virtuoso turn: Treffone switches between characters at a dizzying pace, each marked by a new voice and a new physicality.
Gynneth Paltrow’s assistant, for example, does side lunges while trying to book a table, for 19, tomorrow, no female wait staff, please. Meanwhile, the louche celebrity chef who designs the preposterous (and totally believable) "molecular cuisine" is one big crotch, with Treffone doing her best man-spread across the stage. Watching her race from phone to phone, character to character, is impressive, if a little exhausting.
Fully Committed was a big hit in its premiere season on Broadway in 2002, and it comes to Sydney updated and adapted for its new setting. Local colour – “A table for Peter Costello? Who’s he? Name rings a bell…” – and in-jokes, such as a customer wangling a table by name-dropping the Ensemble Theatre’s artistic director, litter the script and tickle the audience.
However, the humour is a little overdependent on thick accents and blunt caricatures, leaving the central character, Sam, as the palest, most compliant, least charismatic character on stage. Which is OK, except her transformation from underdog to free spirit is too long in coming, and when it finally arrives, comes out of nowhere.
The simple but effective set, by Anna Tregloan, consists of an array of telephones ring-fencing the stage, and Sam’s world. Meanwhile, the direction, by Kate Champion, makes a potentially static scenario into an exuberant commedia dell-arte showcasing the breath-taking versatility of Treffone.
Fully Committed runs until November 16.
Source: Read Full Article
