FULFILLMENT

Engaging and unsettling…it provides a sharply legible index to the mind and method of an original playwright who refuses to embrace easy or consoling answers to the puzzles called human beings…- Ben Brantley, NY Times

Ethan McSweeny's unrelenting production churns forward as Bradshaw's short, cruel scenes cut from one to the next. The tone has a lot in common with Sophie Treadwell's Machinal, which gives the similar sensation of being on a conveyor belt…The versatile set easily transforms into a host of other spaces with seamless efficiency.- Zachary Stewart, Theatremania

Directed by Ethan McSweeny, who keeps the action of this ninety-minute play whirling (quite literally as furniture on rollers gets pushed and spun into place in Brian Sidney Bembridge’s chicly spartan scenic design), Fulfillment unfurls like a kind of bad fever dream, gorgeously accentuated by jagged percussive jazz from composer Mikhail Fiksel, about what lies underneath the surface of those living in privilege.- Andy Probst, American Theater Web

“…a fairly conventional story of an alcoholic lawyer plagued by problems like a boss who doesn’t appreciate him and a noisy upstairs neighbor. Billy Wilder made movies about this kind of man… What keeps “Fulfillment” engaging and unsettling is Mr. Bradshaw’s refusal to make Michael a blameless victim...Michael is equally likable and abrasive, an amiably self-effacing fellow with streaks of arrogance and impatience. - Ben Brantley, NY Times

The Flea Theater’s production, directed to emphasize its undercurrents of eroticism and anger by Ethan McSweeny, is both shocking and sad. The audience witnesses the almost classically Greek downfall of a man done in by his own weaknesses. Anger, lust, pride and greed does in the central character. The acting throughout was outstanding, so much so that it was often difficult to watch the action without wincing and turning away. - Joel Benjamin, TheatreScene

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.– David Cote, Time Out Magazine

Ethan McSweeny’s production is sharp and witty. Inventive lighting design (by Brian Sidney Bembridge) and sound design (by Mikhail Fiksel and Miles Polaski) punctuates and emphasizes the comedy. McSweeny takes great joy in staging Ted’s thumping around in a loft space adjacent to the stage, his sonic reverberations felt throughout the theater.- Nicole Serratore, Exeunt

The show, well-directed by Ethan McSweeny, is funniest when the situations become increasingly heated while the tone remains matter-of-fact, as when Michael and Sarah go straight from earnestly discussing A.A.’s “Big Book” to sex.- Elizabeth Vincentelli, NY Post

Fulfillment has a much tauter dramatic structure than his other recent works…Ethan McSweeny's sleek production maintains a crackling pace, with a few furniture pieces being whirled around the set to edgy, percussive jazz supplied by the sound designer, Miles Polaski,- David Barbour, Lighting and Sound America

Sex, drugs, alcohol and money does not bring contentment to New York City lawyers, but it is still entertaining to watch the lawyers search for inner peace. Ethan McSweeny directs an accomplished ensemble in Thomas Bradshaw’s Fulfillment. …The material is fresh, quick and current.- Nathan Harding, Off Off Online

Bradshaw has never been afraid to fill his plays with characters whose contradictions are as real as the ones theatergoers find in themselves and their own intimates. [He] does a sensational job of refusing to reconcile or explain away these individuals’ dualities. They just are, and that’s what makes Fulfillment so troubling. It feels real…The audience’s sense of the characters’ verity only becomes more palpable given the terrific performances that McSweeny has elicited from the ensemble.- Andy Probst, American Theater Web

In a sense, the playwright is as naked as several of his characters are in various scenes in this deadpan drama…His singular sensibility as a playwright asserts itself more quietly than usual, but its power to disturb is intact.- Ben Brantley, NY Times

In many ways, Fulfillment is a far more troubling play... we can recognize aspects of our own personalities in each of them: the drive to achieve, the allure of self-destruction, and the instinct to obliterate the enemy. We're not dispassionately observing this urban jungle from a distance; we're living in it, and it is terrifying.- Zachary Stewart, Theatremania

FULFILLMENT

Thomas BradshawThe Flea Theater, 2015

Thomas Bradshaw
The Flea Theater, 2015