Broadway’s hit thriller. Now extended through Oct 27.
Following two extended, sold-out downtown engagements, Max Wolf Friedlich’s play Job is now this summer’s “chic, relentless Broadway thriller. Job is extremely effective, often funny, with excellent performances.” – The New York Times
After being placed on leave following a viral incident, Jane would do anything to return to her Big Tech–company job. But as the therapist who needs to authorize it, Loyd suspects her work might be doing more harm than good.
Starring Tony Award® nominee Peter Friedman (Ragtime, “Succession”) and Sydney Lemmon (Tár, “Fear the Walking Dead”), “Job is very provocative, stimulating, and daring—you won’t be bored for a millisecond” (Chicago Tribune). Don’t miss this “electrifying” (Variety), on Broadway through October 27 only.
It’s muscle-tensing and entertaining, particularly in the play’s middle stretch, to watch a meeting of two differently melted minds. And satisfying when Loyd pokes at Jane’s hypocrisies and delusions, her conviction that she’s nothing and also an online martyr – “It’s a privilege to suffer as much as I do,” she says. Still, Friedlich’s line-by-line writing is shrewd enough to convey Jane’s internal hell of self-reflective mirrors, her spiral of judgment to nowhere. Job is, for the most part, a tonal highwire act that wisely keeps to a taut 80 minutes. Or perhaps the more accurate metaphor is trapeze – swinging wildly between farce, zeitgeist-y drama and thriller. Somehow, it lands most of the tricks, including a turn toward the pitch-black in the final act, which ends just before it runs this tight battle of wills and expertise off the rails. Job smartly knows when to log off; there may be no grand messages (and thank God), but this is one of the more insightful internet spirals.
In its slow-burning and fitfully engaging middle, Job ramps up from Boomer-versus-Millennial jousting to a rather contrived Big Twist, left unresolved by an ambivalent shrug of an ending. The rickety whole rests on a couple of prolonged teases. First: is Jane reliable or crazy? Can we trust anything she says; do periodic bursts of noise and light (designed by Cody Spencer and Mextly Couzin) suggest a mind fracturing under trauma? The second big mystery: does Loyd lead a horrific double life? Neither scenario is adequately deepened or resolved. She might be nuts; he might be a criminal. Unlike superior two-handers—like Oleanna or Blackbird—in which men and women square off over meaty dramatic issues, Friedlich coasts on withholding information and padding out back story (Jane’s sad childhood, sadder romantic life). As with many writers who grew up in the golden age of TV, his dialogue is slick, the humor glibly dark. Still, a content moderator deranged by work has been explored more deftly elsewhere, such as Anna Moench’s 2021 Sin Eaters, livestreamed by Theatre Exile during the pandemic.
2024 | Off-Broadway |
Off-Broadway Return Engagement Off-Broadway |
2024 | Broadway |
Original Broadway Production Broadway |
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