You might want to fast-forward through 'FWD>>'
THEATER REVIEW
"FWD>>"
Grade: D
8 p.m. Friday-Saturday; 8 p.m. July 31. Through Aug. 2. $13-$17. Dad's Garage Top Shelf, 280 Elizabeth St. N.E. (back of building). 404-523-3141, www.dadsgarage.com.
Bottom line: Feels like a rough draft.
"FWD>>," a new work by Dad's Garage regulars Randy Havens and Christian Danley, is ostensibly about the cubicle-size life of Our Hero, a data-entry guy at a company called ComputerSTUFF Inc. You know, the little cog in the big machine fighting for his individuality, his identity, his self-worth, that kind of thing.
It's a topic that should appeal to anyone who's ever been stuck in a hateful job (and who hasn't?). But it does so only in brief spurts. Instead of being pointed or caustic, insightful or shrewd, it settles for sophomoric.
Most of the script amounts to silly locker-room-type humor, lowest-common-denominator stuff. Our Hero (Matthew Myers) isn't motivated by any gotta-fight-the-Man ethos. His only obsession is making it with the office babe (an under-used Alison Hastings). None of these characters is any more substantial than fax paper, from boss man Adam (cocky, smarmy and company-speak spouting in the hands of Berny Clark) to an odd colleague called McPuber (Tom Rittenhouse).
Havens (as Cookie Jar puppet) and Danley (as Toy Robot puppet) are much like the good angel and bad angel sitting on Our Hero's shoulders. Havens is sharp, but Danley either doesn't know his lines or is ad-libbing, with mixed results. It's a nifty device though, that they're modeled on a Pez dispenser and toy robot that live on Our Hero's desk. Some in the capacity crowd seem to be having fun, but even at an hour's length, "FWD>>" feels way, way, way too long.
You might want to skip the show —- staged in the theater's tiny (and sauna-sticky) Top Shelf space —- and check out the ad on Dad's Web site: It clicks through a series of still photos that depict "Working Together," "Meeting Deadlines," "Coffee," "Office Romance," "Office Bro-mance" and "Delusions." It's quick and funny and quirky and spot-on, all things that "FWD>>" the show is not.
