I loved the name-droppers (“We are bringing Malcolm Gladwell!”) and the double-entendres, and Bryce, the assistant for Gwyneth Paltrow. There are a lot of plates spinning in the air under Brandon Weinbrenner’s clever direction, and it's thrilling to watch. It is all fast-paced, and you have to keep up. There is nothing wrong with working the reservation desk, but we want Sam to live out his dreams.Īs I said, Godwin plays many roles, and if my count is correct, he plays forty characters, ranging from snotty socialites (one of whom is named Bunny Vandevere, I kid you not) to the somewhat coarse and rough-edged head chef to a French maître de who judges his clientele on their beauty quotient. But the audience is rooting for Sam-we want him to get his big break, and that wistful feeling that maybe he can just leave this job for a bigger stage stayed with me the entire performance. And not all of his auditions have panned out. He doesn’t just play “Sam,” the likable actor who is working at this reservations gig (I mean, this show is all about exposing how awful the gig economy can be-whether you are an artist or not) between auditions. And when he does, you just marvel at it, because it is marvelous.īut in this case, it's just one actor playing all of these roles, and although I have frequently written about Dylan Godwin and how over-the-top talented I think he is, this performance made me realize just how right I am. And that's because they are: this show is kind of a high-wire act, with Godwin changing characters so quickly, you just wonder how he can keep all these characters straight for the entire hour and a half. ![]() ![]() You can see their expressions so much better, and it feels like the stakes are higher. And Sam, played by the super-talented Dylan Godwin, has to handle the stress of a constant barrage of calls from people who want reservations at a place that is mostly Fully Committed, or for those of you who maybe went to public schools like I did, “completely booked.” As part of the Alley’s alternative Christmas show in the Neuhaus Theatre, this production is a more intimate theater in the round experience than the big stage, and I always love being able to feel closer to the actors.
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