"Phil works in mysterious ways"
Sebastian Rex's Fulfil Me Fully Phil made me think of something I'd never considered properly before: the significance of the qualities we give the people/things/beings that become our deities. At least I think Phil is a deity.
He has created a society that includes Husband, Wife, Baker, The Suicider, Fatso, Soldier and a couple of Whores among others. His creations are now searching for satisfaction and they're happy to use that word. It smacks from their mouths, they almost salivate over it laying their base desires open for us to pick up and look at. The language is so plain and so coarse you could tap it like fruit still to ripen but you won't find much joy.
It's this frank, 'take me as I am' language that, though a purposeful stylistic choice, is also quite repulsive, making this a tough play to watch. It reflects the simplicity with which we understand our needs but it's hard to swallow. Husband for example, talks in banal rhyming couplets until he gets the Wife he wants. “A wife has tuned my turned my lyricism into prose” he says. And so she does, but his prose isn't to hot either.
With these characters, Rex asks an interesting question: how do we come to discover what will satisfy us and how do we express it? Matt Ford finds the personality in his character Fatso and along with The Whores he tellingly finds it easiest to express his happiness physically. But Doctor Hiil has to tell us plainly “I am exuberant!” just as Husband tells himself “I am lonely ” or “I am joyful.”
The characters might be one dimensional but everything they do is done with urgency and desperation. They consist of very little but consider themselves complex which, interestingly, is not a characteristic they attribute to their maker.
They view Phil simply and their questions to him are limited. He in turn proves to be a bit of a bum. Always in his dressing gown, he is just as simple as his creations. This for me was key. Deities and priests in all the major faiths are packed with complex qualities. They are forgivers, destroyers, preservers and comforters among endless lists of characteristics. But Phil's followers don't consider the full potential of the being that created them and it turns out they were right to be so lazy about their understanding of him. But why then do they feel he can satisfy them?
That's where the play's concept unravels. It's a shame that the questions raised outweigh the ideas discussed and that the number of characters all skirting around the same points gets so frustrating. It also doesn't really justify its two hour running time which could be cut significantly along with many of the characters who all make much the same point. But in looking at concepts of religion, rules and our perpetual need for fulfilment, there are many strong, if not wholly original, strands included in this show. 
Fulfil Me Fully, Phil runs at The Space until 15th December
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