The play starts with a bang—well, not literally. After being bombarded with high-decibel rock music before the lights dim, the audience is confronted with two characters, one wielding a gun pointed at the cringing other. There follows a series of short false beginnings with the target responding in a number of different ways to the threat, separated by quick blackouts. When the action finally settles down, Max Wolf Friedlich’s psychological thriller Job, now at Broadway’s Hayes Theater after successful Off-Broadway runs at the SoHo Playhouse and the Connelly Theater last season, is gripping and thoughtful examination of our data-driven, over-informed world.
The central action at first appears to be a confrontation between Jane, a Gen Z techie (the gun-wielder, an intense Sydney Lemmon) and Loyd, a crisis counselor (a thoughtful and nuanced Peter Friedman). Jane is desperate to be reinstated in her position at an unnamed web giant after a workplace meltdown that has gone viral and made her an unwilling Internet sensation. Loyd has been assigned to give her a psychological evaluation and deliver a thumbs up or down to her return. Gradually, once the gun is put away in Jane’s bag, we learn the details of her breakdown and the surprising nature of her occupation. Without revealing any spoilers, the script is eventually flipped, all our expectations are reversed and Friedlich delivers a shocking twist ending to 80 minutes of taut suspense.
Friedlich’s construction has its flaws. It’s hard to believe Loyd would be able to conduct a constructive therapy session with the threat of a loaded firearm, and the conclusion (which I will not reveal) is bit too tidy. But, the dialogue is sharp, funny and insightful, full of piercing observations on our screen obsessed society. Jane makes several smart points on the pearl-clutching of anti-tech elders (“People do bad things, not phones.”) She even challenges the whole premise of therapy and rejects the need for it. Loyd hits right back with a spirited defense of his profession, his hippie generation’s idealism and its own brand of anti-establishment rebellion.
Director Michel Herwitz skillfully builds the tension between the antagonists, employing Mextly Couzin’s computer-inspired lighting and Cody Spencer’s jarring sound design to simulate the broken connections in Jane’s frazzled psyche. (Scott Penner designed the set which at once conveys Loyd’s 1960s sensibilities and Jane’s warped perceptions.)
Lemmon and Friedman are the perfect pair for this scary round of mind games. Lemmon endows Jane with a fierce intellect and determination, but also displays her fractured self-image and insecurities. Friedman starts as a compassionate healer under the gun (literally) but he subtly exposes the cracks in the character’s gentle facade till both doctor and patient are fully exposed.
Beyond its thriller template, Job is a fascinating portrait of the powerful impact the omnipresent internet has on our delicate global community and what can happen when the worst of human impulses become nothing more than click-bait. See it and be shocked by the ending.
