Furthermore, as Suzanne Keen points out, the reading of fiction. problem in her frustrated relationship with Heger, but her fantasy of fulfill-. This thesis has been submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for a postgraduate. As Bradshaw’s title implies, his protagonist is on a quest for real satisfaction-material, spiritual, erotic. nine, my daughter Susanna had begun devouring nineteenth-century novels. The sentiment is as banal as his characters are lurid.Īt least Fulfillment gets a handsome and swift-moving production from Ethan McSweeny, and the cast is likable and very game, with Flood and Akinnagbe showing genuine chemistry (and heat) and Jeff Biehl coolly creepy as the neighbor from hell. Luna Star posing in a sheer white body suit and tight shorts. But Bradshaw does float a philosophical position his characters observe rather on-the-nosely that you never know what people will do, given the right (that is, wrong) circumstances. On the one hand, why on earth should he moralize? The theater hasn’t been a meaningful platform for ethical instruction in decades, and the spectacle of depravity provides its own lesson. Agent, Waiter), Susannah Flood (Sarah), and Peter McCabe (Mark). It’s an interesting game the writer plays: daring us to demand either better writing or more complex ethical puzzles. In Fulfillment Bradshaws play at the Flea Theater, Michael is interested in pursuing. Fulfillment is basically an urban dramedy slathered in Bradshaw sauce. But more often, it’s a formula: human ids unleashed for cringe comedy and cheap thrills. Sometimes the transgression coincides with substance, as with 2011’s multilevel Burning. The plays are usually bracing and funny, and Bradshaw truly has his own style. But constant noise from above drives Michael to distraction, and before you know it, he’s swigging Johnnie Walker from the bottle while staring at Internet porn and avoiding Sarah.Īfter being produced for nearly a decade, Bradshaw’s playwriting approach is fairly well established: cheerful but wooden dialogue, characters acting on their worst impulses, schematic plots and a refusal to judge. (Cocaine appears late, presumably to augment Michael’s self-destructiveness.) Sarah helps Michael stop drinking through meditation, and his high-handed boss (Peter McCabe, briskly unctuous) promises to make him a partner if he stays sober. Michael (Gbenga Akinnagbe) is a moderately successful African-American lawyer with a supportive girlfriend, Sarah (Susannah Flood), an outrageously noisy upstairs neighbor (Jeff Biehl) and a drinking problem. How about a hero who has more than two speeds-regular dude or drunk, coke-addled narcissist? Alas, there’s more to judging shock theater, just as there’s more to provocation than writing graphic sex or jokes about racism and pedophilia. If we handed out stars based solely on scenes that were probably awkward to stage in rehearsal, Thomas Bradshaw’s new play might rate four (lots of ultra-realistic sexy time). Fulfillment: Theater review by David Cote
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