Review: Fulfillment (American Theater Company)

By Chicagotheaterbeat @chitheaterbeat

  
  
Fulfillment 

Written by Thomas Bradshaw
American Theater Co, 1909 W. Byron (map)
thru Dec 13 |  tix: $38-$48 | more info
  
Check for half-price tickets  
  

  

  

World premiere’s less shocking than playwright’s past, but distills themes to the point of no point

  

  

American Theater Company presents

  

Fulfillment

Review by Clint May 

Right from the get go, let it be said that this is intentionally ‘transgressive’ theater ostensibly created to thwart expectations of what traditional theater is. It’s Thomas Bradshaw at the helm, the prolific provocateur of the last ten years who has in the past featured two gay men inviting their adopted son into bed for sex and a suburban family turning to porn to make ends meet. Fulfillment runs the gamut from the blatantly absurd to the mildly shocking. That it’s frequently a little boring is the meta-point.

We’re so blasé to the deviant that the audience response is part of the art (technically always true but more integral here). That this pulply porn doesn’t try as effusively as past works to make any monocles drop from a lack of aggressively offensive scenes is actually a little shocking in and of itself given the expectations surrounding ATC’s co-world premiere with The Flea of NYC. Maybe a new generation raised in an era of asinine trigger warnings will find Fulfillment worthy of a dabbing of the forehead with a kerchief in fifteen years.

Life for middle-aged Michael (Stephen Conrad Moore) appears to be listing in a generally upwards trajectory, even if there’s a backlash behind every milestone. That new trendy SoHo apartment he’s viewing will require more than asking price to secure. He’s having kinky sex with his coworker Sarah (Erin Barlow), but she’s telling him that racism is holding him back at their big law firm. Ceilings both metaphorical and literal figure large as Michael learns from his boss (Scott Olson) that it is—in theory—his drinking that has held him back and not his skin color. His new upstairs neighbor Ted (Jeff Trainor) is a bored stay at home dad who has nothing better to do than endlessly torment Michael with loud noises (e.g., dropping books, a little girl running around, bowling).

Both his attempt to stop his drinking with Alcoholics Anonymous and mediate-away his neighborly frustrations with Sarah’s spiritual mumbo-jumbo contain yet more backlashes. Life for Michael is like ordering a perfect Chilean sea bass. After sending it back for being overcooked, he is told it will never be just right. His Goldilocksean desires are the reason for his dissatisfaction—his lack of fulfillment, if you will. It’s such a fine point on the nose it would make Forest Gump blush.

Almost nothing about Fulfillment feels nuanced, and it’s only tenuously rational in signature Bradshaw fashion. Every character is nonsensical to the point of unlikeability because: show. Each frustration or atonality or hollow characterization is intentional, and Bradshaw is the kind of auteur that fits no other mold than the one he has cobbled together from other sources to call his own. One can plainly see the chords he’s trying to pull to elicit a response of repulsion, incredulity, or a yawn.

Director Ethan McSweeny and crew appear adrift if not downright stuck between worlds by design. Some scenes jar directly from salacious to cringy comedy, from the naturalistic to the head-scratchingly preposterous. Moore and Barlow attempt ardent, scintillating performances and unselfconsciously throw themselves into whatever is asked of them (which includes fulfilling the promise of the trigger warning posted outside the theater of nudity and sexual violence) but it’s all to naught but wooden given the source.

Bradshaw’s unedifying portrait of unfettered upper class ids trapped on the hedonic treadmill of life never passes judgment, unless one considers a kind of passive nihilism a point of view and banal luridness a worthwhile perspective. Fulfillment is as open-ended as the many paths towards that elusive concept. Take it or leave it.

  

Rating: ★★

  

  

Fulfillment continues through December 13th at American Theater Company, 1909 W. Byron (map), with performances Thursdays and Fridays 8pm, Saturdays 2pm and 8pm, Sundays 2pm.  Tickets are $38-$48, and are available by phone (773-409-4125) or through their website (check for half-price tickets at Goldstar.com). More info at ATCweb.org.  (Running time: 90 minutes without intermission)

Photos by Michael Brosilow 

  

artists

cast

Stephen Conrad Moore (Michael), Erin Barlow (Sarah), Jason Bradley (Simon), Jeff Trainor (Ted, Leonard), Scott Olson (Mark), Justin Cornwell (Delroy), Erika Napoletano (Bob, Waiter, Real Estate Agent)

behind the scenes

Ethan McSweeny (director), Lynne Harris (stage manager), Brian Sidney Bembridge (scenic design, lighting design), Mikhail Fiksel (composer, sound design), Miles Polaski (sound design), Andrea Lauer (costumer design), Janet O’Neill (costume associate), J. David Brimmer (fight choreographer), Dave Gonzalez (assistant fight choreographer), Yehuda Duenyas (sex choreographer), Michael Brosilow (photos)

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