BWW Reviews: Arouet's THE FIERCE URGENCY OF NOW Elicits Little Sympathy or Interest

If you're going to turn a highly personal story into a play then make sure that you have something fresh to say about the subject matter or at least that the elements of the play are relatable to the audience. Unfortunately, Arouet's world premiere of Doug DeVita's "The Fierce Urgency of Now" had neither of those things. It's a valiant attempt at conveying the emotional ups and downs of business but ultimately lacked the tools to bring me into the play.

Set in the world of high powered advertising, Kyle (Evan Louis Thomas) is a gay man in his thirties stuck in a job he may be good at but doesn't particularly like. His writing partner at the agency, Meryl (Kelly Johnson) has just been reassigned to another team, his boss Kate (Lisa Viertel) secretly hates him, his new account is headed up by his married ex-lover Neil (Mark Waldstein) and his new writing partner Dodo (Laura Crouch) is much older and rubs him the wrong way.

If it sounds like you've heard this before it's because you probably have. The whole thing felt like the mix of a 90's sitcom and a Lifetime Original Movie complete with a cliché and predictable plot and forced dialog. It's jam packed with high emotion moments and plot points that spring up out of nowhere with nothing to elicit them and characters that are extremely hard to get behind. Our "hero" Kyle whines and throws tantrums for most of play giving no indication why anyone would want to hire/be around him. And the rest of the characters seem only there to give Kyle something to react to as they have very little to do with driving the plot. Not to mention the fact that there's more advertising references in the show than you can shake a Senior VP of Creative Direction at and unless you're in that world those references do not engage but obviously the writer found them fascinating.

The cast does what it can with the script but even they can't make this dialog sound fresh. Viertel and Waldstein probably do the best with what they're given and make their characterizations somewhat realistic. Crouch has some nice moments as one of the few people in the show you could almost care about. And Johnson is fun but ultimately a prop for Kyle. But it's Thomas who has to be able to carry this show and with him in constant bitch mode it's difficult to get behind such a one-note character.

Director Roy Arauz stages the play well although the interminable scene changes that turned into little plays of their own seemed like so many inside jokes for the cast and crew and just made the show drag. Ultimately it's an unrelatable show filled with cliché and unrelatable characters with a plot that has been done time and time before and better. It felt like that story you get told at a party that the teller thinks is hilariously interesting and so he packs it full of personal details but could have and should have been conveyed in five minutes, gotten its courtesy laugh, and moved on from. Which is why I give this a NAH with my three letter rating system. Not quite enough of a train wreck to get the dreaded WTF rating but entirely too personal to the teller to be engaging for the masses.

"The Fierce Urgency of Now" performs at the DownStage Theatre through November 22nd. For tickets or information visit them online at www.arouet.us.

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