REVIEW: Job (Signature Theatre)

To the casual local theatregoer, Signature “Best Place to See a Musical, By Any Measure” Theatre may not be thought of as a venue of note for straight plays. But the Arlington house actually has a deep history with the format (and anyone who saw the recent Primary Trust or King of the Yees knows this), including as a purveyor of regional debuts. Their latest, Job by Max Wolf Friedlich, has arrived barely two months removed from its New York hot streak of two sold-out downtown runs followed by a limited Rialto turn. I actually avoided seeing that production since I knew it would be coming to the DMV relatively soon. But perhaps that was the wrong move: this is something that deserves further viewings.

**** Sections delineated with asterisks will contain SPOILERS. There is a lot to unpack with this show that I want to talk about, but the marketing is intentionally vague.

Book
Job is a two-hander in which Jane, a neurotic millennial big tech employee, goes viral after having a violent meltdown at her unnamed workplace. In order to be reinstated, she must be mentally cleared to return by a mental health professional (Lloyd). The 80-minute show follows their first session and unravels why she lashed out, from both hers and Lloyd’s own perspective. Their conversations describe an evolving Bay Area that has transmogrified from a bastion of progressivism to a cyber-libertarian wasteland. Friedlich’s writing on this front is taut and Very Online, containing a certain logged-in quality I often find lacking with these tech stories. Much of the media in this realm takes lots of pages from the likes of Black Mirror and its antecedents, which are general fables against political technology with a tone of the end-user and not those from the inside. Jane’s detached, sour presence complements her insightful approach to the current state of left-leaning politics and our relationship with the internet. Rarely have I experienced dialogue about the net culture in a piece of media that so aptly tackles a disillusionment with armchair activism, but from within it instead of against it. In fact, much of the meat of this piece is in its inter-generational discourse, Lloyd being an ex-hippy who fell in line with society. In an age where mental health is all the rage among the unhealthily-attached netizens, an actual therapist tries to treat one and is rejected with teeth. It balances this discourse on a needle. A lot of talk about Job comes from its big reveal at the end; which, while impeccably tense, it might overshadow the main takeaways that make the first 70 minutes so exhilarating. 10/10

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The gasps the audience gusped when lights up, and she’s pointing a gun at Lloyd? Talk about starting off with a bang. There’s never really a time in which Job takes its foot off the gas, even in its silence. And there’s lots of it, the laser-focused kind where any sudden movement would make you jump. The complex motivations of Jane, too, drive a lot of it: as the content moderator, the vile things she is exposed to day-to-day understandably create a volatile headspace. But what is interestingly explored is how she seemingly, (unintendedly according to the author) allegorizes Christ: burdening all of the sins of humanity onto the one person (at least to her), who can devote herself to saving the world from it. Of course, she takes a much different path than the Biblical subject, ending in the controversial stand-off in the office with Lloyd. It can be debated whether Lloyd is the culprit she’s truly after — just go search reviews of this on r/Broadway — given how distorted her worldview has become. But Lloyd doesn’t exactly deny it, creating a whirlpool of cynicism that feels addicting and deserving of rewatches.

Acting

I just barely missed out on Studio’s John Proctor is the Villain in 2022. Which is a shame! It’s one of the big recent hits that people are still talking about; a notable case when we have hundreds of shows in our region every year. Jordan Slattery won a Helen Hayes award as part of the ensemble in that production, and now she’s back to show her chops solo as Jane, the deluded therapy patient. She has a plain, largely stoic presence, which allows her lines to feel more powerful. But do not mistake plain and stoic for a poor performance. Quite the opposite, in fact: her command of the stage is electrifying. She feels like a genuine threat to her, Lloyd, and the audience all at once, lowering her barriers only to re-erect them with even greater vitriol. Jane is a troubled and troublesome woman, a fact Slattery executes with precision. And matching this energy is Eric Hisson as Lloyd, constantly in turbulent fear of the beast in his office and mostly calm under the pressure of the eternal standoff. When he is allowed to be human, Hisson’s granola dad charm is effusive, which emboldens the plot even more by the end when the two show down. 9/10

Production
AD Matthew Gardiner takes the reins, directing in a way that feels two-dimensional; physically, that is. Similar to Signature’s prior production of The Bridges of Madison County, in which the action is diametric on a narrow stage, so is Job in a traditional proscenium. It feels like they’re never staring in the audience’s direction, even when they are; like a fighting game, we are constantly exposed to their profiles, feeling more and more like a battle every minute. It’s evocative of those scenes from western films — albeit much faster pace and uber-modern. But disrupting the pace here and there are blares of bass (designed by Kenny Neal) that couple with sickly green dinge (Colin Bills did the lighting), never seeming to have a time pattern, making everything all the more nerve-wracking. For the better. 8/10

Viz

There’s something coolly ruminant in the cover for Job’s program, which depicts Jane’s active absorption into the internet in surrounded by void. Contrasting is the pre-show arrangement, playing 2010s pop EDM from the speakers and depicting a pretty standard therapist’s office, fluorescence and all. The lights themselves extending beyond the stage into the audience, sort of fulfilling the engrossing prophecy foretold by the pamphlet in your hand. 9/10

Verdict

Job makes its regional premiere in exciting fashion, coasting on plain ambience to grab audiences by surprise with smart dialogue and plenty of twists. 36/40