Theater: Fulfillment Center, an intense exploration of class conflict

It seems like every new play I see these days deals with either apocalyptic angst or the plight of the “working class”. Fulfillment Center, a new darkly comedic play by Abe Koogler presented by the Manhattan Theater Club, is one of the better examples of the latter theme. Its four characters buffet one another, reflect, whine, and search for meaning within the rigid confines of an 8 x 60 foot raised platform which restrictively channels their interactions to a series of one on one 5-10 minute confrontations, in total comprising a one act 80 minute play. The play deals with the consequences of a move to New Mexico by two New Yorkers, Madelaine (an intense edgy, excellent Eboni Booth) and her boyfriend Alex (a nerdy, neurotic, and sexual Bobby Moreno). The play gets past some predictable “Manhattanites in the wild west” jokes by showing us the angst that led this couple to relocate (a failed job in NYC), their discomfort with themselves and their relationship, and their utter discomfort and fascination when encountering two drifter working class types, the faded cocktail lounge entertainer Suzan (Dierdre O’Connell) and the intensely introverted John (Frederick Weller). Suzan, despite her bad back, interviews for a position under new manager Alex stocking shelves in a soulless Amazon-like distributing house. According to the web, such a “Fulfillment Center” (a real name, BTW) allows “e-commerce merchants to outsource warehousing and shipping. This relieves online business of the necessary physical space to store all products, which is beneficial for merchants without the capacity to directly manage inventory. Sellers send merchandise to the fulfillment center, and the outsourced provider ships it to customers for them.”  Sounds like a satisfying workplace, right? Suzan is not up to the task and rigors of the machine-like work, stocking and pulling boxes under the relentless automated prodding of regular buzzers that remind her of school, which she hated. Nor is the nerdy Alex up to her management, finding it stressful to motivate and discipline complex souls within corporate pressures. Alex’ girlfriend Madelaine, a frustrated writer, hates New Mexico and blames Alex for their situation, pressuring him to excel so they can move to their next Land of Oz in Seattle. The only one of the four characters who seems initially adjusted is the quiet cowboy-type John, but his desperate loneliness emerges during the play. In short, all four characters lack purpose and satisfaction, and their varied struggles emerge in a variety of set pieces from everyday life: a failed internet date, a job performance review, a trip to an outdoor sculpture garden. Each of the four actors is paired with each of the others for at least one scene, thus the characters’ divergent communication styles, emotions, and aspirations allows us to learn much about each one via their conversations with three different types of people. Playwright Koogler does this effortlessly and without false melodrama or contrived situations. The drama seems natural, yet deeply revealing of our human insecurities in a way that I did not see in more lauded on-Broadway plays about them middle class, e.g. Sweat or The Humans. Koogler's moments of human outreach, compassion, and warmth are all the more effective in such a bleak emotional landscape.

The production, tautly directed by Daniel Aukin and lit creatively by Pat Collins, used the barren, long runway and a few folding chairs to create austere distance between the paired characters—they are all struggling to interact with others—and made their occasional close contact even more intimate and significant. The achievement of playwright Koogler was to add new revelations to the ongoing creative- vs -working class discussion, while mostly centering on our unique struggles to get on happily in the world, no matter what our education or background. That he succeeded without a political soapbox or patronizing any of the characters is a credit to his writing skill. It is a bit sad that misery and angst must be our common unifying emotions, but the human compassion for others that it provokes is perhaps something we can rally around.