Abe Koogler’s The Fulfillment Centre opened last night in a production directed by Ted Dykstra.  It’s the story of four people in a small town dependent on some sort of giant fulfillment centre; an all too common fate for small town America.  In a post-industrial USA it’s that or a prison.

We meet John (Evan Bullung); an NYU Business School graduate who is trying to rescue his career by working as a first line supervisor in the fulfillment centre.  It’s a total mismatch.  The job requires the skills and compassion of a Marine Corps sergeant not a conscience, facility with Powerpoint and mastery of case study jargon.  This comes out when aging hippy Suzan (Kristen Thomson) applies for a job.  It’s obvious she isn’t up to the brutal physical work required but he takes her on anyway with predictable consequences for the metrics he’s evaluated on.

He’s accompanied from New York to New Mexico by his long time girlfriend Madeleine (Gita Miller) who hates everything about the place, has a drinking problem and is looking for some fun on the side via the Internet.  That turns out to be Alex (Emilio Vieira) who is a carpenter living in his car, on the same campground as Suzan, after being kicked out by his girlfriend, probably because he drinks and gets violent.  The “affair” basically gets nowhere despite a lot of alcohol.  Meanwhile Suzan has designs on Alex.  So for an hour and three quarters we watch four dysfunctional people being dysfunctional.

There are some interesting quotes in the programme.  One, from Marcus Aurelius, reads “Every living organism is fulfilled when it follows the right path for its own nature”.  And in this play everyone is following anything but the “right path” and predictably remains, at best, unfulfilled.

That said there are things to admire in this production.  The acting is really very good indeed and the set design  by Nick Blais is very clever.  It uses cardboard boxes; rearranged at intervals, plus bar lighting on the floor to create all the spaces needed; the warehouse, a kitchen, Alex’ car and so on.  It’s all very slick and professional.

But in the end it’s unsatisfying.  It might have had something to say about the inhumanity of our mail order culture, or the hollowing out of American society or any number of things but the basic premise of using four losers as the principals undermines any such reading.  These four would be failures whatever they attempted and watching losers fail again (and again) doesn’t make for a particularly enjoyable or fulfilling evening.

The Fulfillment Centre plays at Coal Mine Theatre until December 7th.

Photo credit: Elena Emer Photography