Comedy has actors constantly hearing voices

By Wayne Harada
Advertiser Entertainment Editor

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'Fully Committed' A comedy by Becky Mode, produced by Tim Bostock Productions Premieres at 8 p.m. Wednesday The ARTS at Marks Garage Andrew Meader performs May 15, 17, 19, 21 (private show), 24, 26, 29, 31 Greg Howell performs May 16, 18, 23, 25, 28, 30 and June 1 8 p.m. daily, 4 p.m. Sundays $15 show only, $50 6:30 p.m. dinner at Indigo followed by dessert after the 90-minute performance 521-9699

The time and place: A few days ago, in the basement of The ARTS.

The players: Andrew Meader, 26, who answers the phone much of the time in his daily routine at Tim Bostock Productions, which is presenting the comedy; and Greg Howell, 45, a hair and makeup stylist, at Paul Brown.

The accomplices: Director Scott Rogers, sound technician Jason Taglianetti.

Meader is going through his dialogue, which actually are monologues, because he's the only one in the play, except that he takes on as many as 40 guises, letting voice fluctuations and body language suggest sex and type.

Howell looks on, tracking the dialogue with a script, his mouth moving. Hey, he's got to do the same thing, too.

And that is to repeat, memorize, react, memorize. Folks good and bad. The meek and the aggressive. The temperamental chef and dad. The gay rep of Naomi Campbell and, horrors, Tim Zagat, he of the maroon dining guide.

"You relate to so many of the characters if you've ever worked in service," Meader said. "You know these people, because you've dealt with them, from nice to snotty to desperate. They stop at nothing to get something they want."

What they want, of course, is a table for dinner service during a fully committed pre-Christmas dining season, and clearly, if your name is not Zagat, you're out of luck.

It's a daunting task to remember all those similar lines.

The phone rings. "How may I help you?"

It rings again. "Thank you for holding. How may I help you?"

"I thought of sleeping with a recording of the script under my pillow," Howell said about memorizing pages of dialogue without playing off a fellow actor. "Repetition, repetition ... and focus, focus, focus, that's what it's all about.

"The phone is actually a character," Howell said. And there are two in the show: the one customers call in on; the other, the hot line to the chef.

"You have to know how to recognize the rings," Meader said.

Then there's that intercom.

The play is an entree of laughs, a buffet of characterizations, a dessert tray full of insights into humanity.

"The one-character aspect was appealing; in a sense, I'm doing a series of impersonations, of people from real life, the way I'd relate stories to my family, my mother, my friends," Meader said.

"There are 50 pages of text; it's like 'Hamlet,' but with 40 characters. The memorizing is not a big deal, but it's easier when you act with someone else. Here, you are the stimulus. You are the character that picks up the phone ... and the one who's on the other end," Howell said.

"Before we started rehearsals, we cut out pictures from magazines, individually, to 'imagine' who some of these characters are, so that we could make them believable and have an image of who they are in our minds," Meader said. "Finding voices was a challenge; I started to watch people's lips."

"I'm having fun with accents; there's a guy from Kuwait. And one from Pakistan. It's a subtle difference," said Howell, delving into the accented tongue. "I especially like Mrs. Vandevere, as in severe; she is so tight, she'd tweak, and could bounce off a dime. She can't close her mouth."

"We have our own strengths and weaknesses in different areas and characters," Meader said. "I get funny looks, because I bring my book (script) where I go — the store, the bathroom, downtown. It's consuming.

"One of my favorites is Bryce, who is Naomi Campbell's personal assistant; she is known for being demanding, and Bryce, who's effeminate and super-hyper, is fun to do."

"We had been rehearsing separately, but Scott brought us together for four or five rehearsals; it's similar, but different, how we approach certain characters," Howell said.

"Scott has worked with us on what the characters are implying; the approach is the same, but the results are different because we're different."