Social media, and the internet more broadly, were supposed to unlock a utopian dream. A highway of human connectivity gifting infinite access to one another and arm us with an unrivalled library of information contained in our pocket, all within easy reach.
Only it didn’t quite work out like that, with fake news and very real hate proliferating. With genocides live-streamed while world leaders look the other way, and free speech set on fire or confused for rampant hatred. This supposed wonder tool might have its uses, particularly in finding common ground or organising protest, but it’s also stirred up an increasingly disastrous battle of the binaries that makes us all feel sicker.
It’s into this rabid lion’s den that Max Wolf Friedlich’s Broadway debut, Job, lurches. Having wowed critics stateside, I had high hopes for this high-wire work billed as a psychological thriller, making its Australian debut at Red Stitch Actors' Theatre in St Kilda.
What’s the premise of Red Stitch’s Job?
Jane is a very much online big tech employee who, like far too many of us, has all but sacrificed any sense of a healthy personal life and boundaries at the altar of an extremely high-stakes job that has become her entire personality. Sure, it might be chewing her up, body and soul, with flashes of internal torment crashing through. But, rightly or wrongly, Jane feels the pain is worth it – gaining some sense of control, of harnessing her power.
The problem is, Jane’s just been forced onto indefinite leave after a very public meltdown in the middle of the office. A moment’s volcanic ‘This is how your email finds me’ eruption magnified out of all proportion, thanks to a back-stabbing colleague who smelled blood in the water and posted it on social media for all the world to see.
As the clicks keep coming and mean-spirited folks online marvel at Jane’s supposed ÜberKaren turn, she bangs on the door of mild-mannered therapist Loyd, hoping she can convince him to sign off on her return to work, even if it kills the pair of them. Which it might very well do, as this is one of those days when Jane’s got a gun. You know, just to make her feel safer… stronger. What could go wrong?
Who else is involved in Red Stitch’s Job?
Quite a lot, as it turns out. And quite a lot sums up the play perfectly. It starts at 11 and doesn’t let up, with Jane (Jessica Clarke) holding Loyd (Darren Gilshenan) at gunpoint, then thinking better of it. But sadly, under the misfired direction of Nadia Tass, Clarke’s read on Jane never really pulls back.
Clarke is a remarkable performer who can hold an audience captive single-handedly, as she did to rightly rapturous reviews in Red Stitch’s production of Iphigenia in Splott. There’s no denying her capacity to tackle thorny subjects with abundant empathy for a prickly character, but the direction here is too blunt. Too much of the role’s substance is held back until it’s too late to tackle the real topic in any depth. It’s also worrying that Jane’s confused outbursts skew heavily racist, without Friedlich’s script really wrangling with any of that.
Worse still, in what feels like a gruesomely retrograde depiction of mental health, Tass has Jane visually tick and gurn from the off, exacerbated by lighting designer David Parker’s heavy-handed bright blue flashing cues, and Daniel Nixon’s overly glitchy score, itself an increasingly tired theatrical trick. In contrast, both Jacob Battista’s set and costume design are underwhelmingly greige.
While Gilshenan has a surer handle on Loyd’s panicked crisis management, a late-in-the-game reckoning with what’s under the therapist’s skin also feels spat out without consequence. Job’s lack of a release valve may play to the thriller tagline, but even at 75 minutes, it’s exhausting in an unrewarding way that hinders the stakes, a very blunt tool with nowhere much to go, dramatically.
Highlight of Red Stitch’s Job?
Even if Clarke’s strengths have been undermined a little by the directorial choices, she is still a magnificent performer worth seeing in full swing. We just wish Tass had trusted her to find the light and shade between the lines of Friedlich’s underwritten work.
Who will like Red Stitch’s Job?
Folks who like their theatre drawn in big, broad strokes.
Job is showing at Red Stitch Actors' Theatre until October 12. For more information and to book tickets, head to the website.
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