What I Want Right Now
The Vortex, through July 18
Running time: 1 hr, 45 min
The thought of losing a loved one to sickness is terrifying, so much so that it’s easy to forget that daily life continues even then. The paper is read; dinner is prepared. A relationship continues its demands and rewards, only on different terms. Different Stages’ premiere production of What I Want Right Now, by Austin playwright Tom White, follows a couple who are facing their final time together. They bicker a little, but mostly they do their best to treasure each other in the face of devastating reality.
There’s a catch, of course. Like a magic genie minus the flying carpet, Bruce (the ever laid-back Tom Chamberlain) has developed the ability to grant wishes, any wishes at all. This news comes much to the consternation and delight of his wife, Darla (the not-so-laid-back Leng Wong), who fantasizes about having fame, fortune, the perfect body, and more.
The glaringly obvious – that maybe she might sorta think about wishing that Bruce wasn’t dying – doesn’t occur to her for some reason until the end. Why that wish is impossible to carry out is hard to say. Or maybe it is possible. Clarity is a huge problem with this play.
What I Want Right Now feels like a thought experiment without parameters or results. To borrow a principle from hardcore fantasy and science fiction: If you create a new world, you must also create the rules by which that world is governed. These rules are what make the basics of storytelling possible: conflict, urgency, obstacles, and other things from your college-lit-class syllabus. What I Want Right Now is not science fiction, but it goes beyond strict realism, and along the way it fails to define what is and is not possible in this new wish-granting world.
What exactly is Bruce dying of? How bad is it? How long does he have left? What are the limitations of his new wish-granting superpower? Where did the wish-granting come from? Who was he before he got sick? What is their life like, beyond the ugly pleather couch at center stage? Do these people hold down jobs? That’s the messload of questions neither the script nor the production as directed by Norman Blumensaadt answer over the course of two hours.
Along with Bruce and Darla, an unnamed man (M. Omid Ghorashi) and woman (Amy Lewis) also appear onstage, although why, it’s hard to say. Sometimes they play the same scene that Bruce and Darla just played, nearly word for word but with genders reversed. Sometimes one jumps in for Bruce or Darla in a scene; sometimes they watch a scene silently. Sometimes they act out a goofy pantomime with nifty costumes. That’s a lot of parts to play without ever maintaining a clear purpose.
What I Want Right Now is a script that was perhaps hatched from workshop a little too soon. The author creates several amusing, interesting scenes but in the end does not connect enough of these dots to form a whole picture.
This article appears in July 11 • 2008.
