When the "Job" robs your sanity
The play "Job" is a bracing must-see. Written by the renowned playwright Max Wolf Friedlich, it is now in its final week at the Speakeasy Theater (527 Tremont Street. The buzz it has generated will linger long after the final curtain call.
This gripping psychological techno-thriller keeps audiences on the edge of their seats for its taut 80-minute, one-act runtime. The play unfolds as a volatile therapy session between Jane (Josephine Moshiri Elwood), a Millennial content moderator at a downtown San Francisco tech firm, and Loyd (Dennis Trainor, Jr.), a Baby Boomer crisis therapist assigned to assess her fitness to return to work.
"Job" dramatizes the hazards of constant surveillance and the psychic toll of a high-pressure tech workplace. Jane embodies the long-term, deleterious effects of such labor—the erosion of boundaries, the corrosion of mental wellness, and the steep personal cost of digital gatekeeping.
Like many Millennials, Jane is a techie tasked with reviewing and removing offensive, violent, and reprehensible material from the internet. After suffering a meltdown at work—captured on video that unsurprisingly went viral—she is desperate to reclaim her job. "I was everywhere on earth, screaming like a crazy person—being a crazy person," Jane tells Loyd. "I was a meme." Loyd's role is to evaluate her psychological readiness to return. "Would getting let go from this job be the worst thing?" he pointedly asks.
Jane's work has exposed her to relentless violent imagery and hate speech, resulting in PTSD and vicarious trauma. One harrowing account underscores the depth of that damage: "The video was from the civil war in Sierra Leone. Government soldiers tied a rebel to two trucks. He was a little boy, not older than thirteen. The trucks drove in opposite directions and split the boy in half," Jane recounts. "I buried it—nobody will ever have to see that video again."
Generational tension crackles throughout their exchanges, revealing sharply drawn assumptions and resentments. "Boomers spend their time being mad that sixteen-year-old girls are using filters on Instagram to feel prettier," Jane snaps. "We're protecting ourselves from the thoughts your shampoo commercials made us think!"
The play moves with startling velocity, mirroring the relentless pace at which we are all forced to live and process information. There are no winners here, and no tidy resolution to the moral and ethical questions surrounding technology's impact on younger generations. The audience is left to wrestle with those questions alone. What we do know is that the play begins in a dark place: Jane is pointing a gun at Loyd. By the end, we understand why.
"What makes "Job" vital storytelling is its insistence on complexity. It resists heroes and villains. It asks us to sit with ambiguity and examine our own assumptions about harm, responsibility, and control," notes Dawn M. Simmons, the Speakeasy Stage Company's new and second artistic director. "At a moment when conversations about mental health, workplace ethics, and digital surveillance are urgent and fraught, this play offers no sermon—only a mirror." I left the theater acutely aware of the grip my iPhone has on my own life.
The performances are nothing short of a tour de force. Elwood and Trainor spar with impeccable timing and their witty, electric repartee provides relief amid the dark stories they tell. "Elwood brings a jittery, manic quality, like circuitry gone haywire. Trainor excels in "Job" as a regular-seeming professional who has layers — a better word is depths — that aren't immediately apparent, " The Boston Globe wrote.
Both actors elevate "Job" to an unforgettable performance.
After seeing the play I am trying now to untether my dependence on my iPhone. It worked for the hour I was at the gym.
"Job" runs through February 7 at the SpeakEasy Stage Company at the Roberts Studio Theater, Calderwood, Pavilion. Tickets start at $25. 617-933-8600, www.speakeasystage.com