A sad slice of an America ravaged by capitalism, now on view in Toronto

It’s a melancholy that permeates this heart-tugger of a play, offering a glimpse into an America ravaged by corporate capitalism — one that spits out victims in its wake without mercy nor pity. 

The title of Koogler’s work, which originally premiered in 2017, is purposefully ironic. The show follows a quartet of individuals who work at, or are loosely connected to, a regional shipping facility or “fulfilment centre” for a large online retailer in New Mexico. (Though never mentioned by name, it’s clear Koogler is referring to Amazon.)

These characters all lead unfulfilling lives, quietly decaying under the desert sun. 

Thomson’s Suzan lands a job at the distribution facility after barely passing a physical test. It doesn’t matter that she suffers from chronic back pain. She’s without a home, estranged from her sister, and desperately needs the cash so she can fix up her broken car and drive to Maine to seek help from an old friend. 

Suzan’s manager, Alex (Emilio Vieira), is equally dissatisfied with his life. He’s recently relocated from New York City, after giving up on his music dream. His partner, Madeleine (Gita Miller), an alcohol-downing, thoroughbred urbanite, wants nothing to do with this provincial lifestyle. But Alex is on a six-month probation with the retail megacorp. Pass, and the couple can be transferred to Seattle. Fail, and they’re indefinitely stuck in New Mexico. 

A fourth character, John (Evan Buliung), exists on the margins. He was at the top of his class in high school, but never made it through college after going “off-track,” as he vaguely recounts. Now, he lives in a campground, spending most of his days fixing up his car. It’s there that he meets Suzan, who sleeps in a tent not far away. 

Their relationship is not a friendship. Not quite. It’s more like a lifeline, connecting two itinerant souls floating aimlessly at sea. 

The way Koogler renders both Suzan and John is remarkable. His writing is oblique, yet compassionate. He never truly explores their pasts, but that’s understandable: For Suzan and John, their pasts are simply too painful to discuss. 

But through these two characters, Koogler delivers a withering critique of America’s capitalistic system, one that’s allowed corporate greed to flourish, while leaving people like Suzan and John choking on the fumes of the industrial machine. 

Both Buliung and Thomson offer performances that match the quality of this writing. The former, who’s had quite the year playing brooding, middle-aged men, is especially sympathetic as John, words trailing out of his mouth in a flattened tone, as if all hope has escaped him. 

Thomson, by contrast, often plasters a smile on her face. She speaks in a chipper, singsong voice. But it’s a strained facade, masking the hurt that sits beneath the surface. In the play’s last scene, when that facade cracks, we finally see the pain below. 

The roles of Alex and Madeleine, however, are written with far less depth and complexity.

Koogler barely explores how Alex’s inherent sense of compassion is at odds with his managerial role at a company whose only concern is meeting quotas and fulfilling orders. This tension is only briefly touched upon in the play’s penultimate scene.  

Miller’s character, Madeleine, is as one-note and paper-thin as it gets. If she’s not arguing with Alex, she’s railing about how much she detests New Mexico. Maybe I’ve just seen too many Hallmark Christmas movies lately, but she feels like one of those Grinch-y villains plucked out of the city and forced to endure small-town life.

What’s most perplexing is why Madeleine is written as the sole Black character in the play. Perhaps she’s meant to symbolize the hardened city-dwellers who turn up their noses at the blue-collar workers toiling in the American heartlands. But with his dimensionless portrayal, Koogler treads dangerously close to feeding into the “angry Black woman” stereotype perpetuated by the media. 

Director Ted Dykstra’s production is simply staged on a set designed by Nick Blais. Shipping boxes, arranged or stacked in various formations, transform into Alex’s apartment, John’s campground and the fulfilment centre where Suzan works.

This doesn’t entirely work on Coal Mine’s thrust stage, with audiences sitting on three sides of the theatre. “Fulfillment Centre” is a quiet play; what’s left unspoken is more important than what is said. For many of the characters, what they can’t communicate through words is revealed on their faces. But Dykstra’s setup too frequently leaves portions of the audience staring at the actors’ backs. 

This leaves the production feeling somewhat hollow. Even if there’s much to admire in Dykstra’s staging and Koogler’s script, this “Fulfillment Centre,” ironically, leaves a lingering sense of promise unfulfilled.