SpeakEasy's 'Job' is a chilling technology thriller

Jane and her therapist, Loyd, are at odds.

She’s pointing a gun at him and it's unclear if she’s going to pull the trigger at the start of SpeakEasy Stage Company’s thrilling production of “Job” (through Feb. 7).

In Max Wolf Friedlich’s barbed play, Jane is angling to get her job back at an unnamed, elite tech company. She was put on leave after a video of her having a breakdown went viral. Whether or not she can return to her job — clearing the internet of obscene, violent or otherwise offensive content — lies in Loyd’s hands.

So, Jane puts a chair in front of the door of his cozy office and says she’s not leaving until she gets her job back.

And for the rest of this enticing, wild play, Loyd and Jane verbally spar about their worldviews, their fears and themselves.

The skillful Marianna Bassham directs this taut production, starring the remarkable duo Josephine Moshiri Elwood and Dennis Trainor Jr. Moshiri Elwood is the somewhat lonely Jane whose identity is tied too tightly to her career, and Trainor plays Loyd, who believes he can help even the most difficult of patients. He is certain he can help Jane, but she’s not really interested in tying trauma A to trauma D. All she wants is her job. A job that she feels she’s excellent at. Not to mention, it gives her power, she says.

Eventually, Jane puts the gun away and starts talking to Loyd. And even as their conversation deepens, the sharp edges of the play remain. And the tension is poised to bubble over. Every now and again, Jane seems to have these moments where her thoughts collide. Lights flash and buzzing sounds ring out — courtesy of lighting designer Amanda E. Fallon and sound designer Lee Schuna — as she retreats into herself, and then comes to. These moments add to the chaos.

In the super-charged therapy session that encapsulates the play, Jane does talk about trauma — like an old fling who got her pregnant, and her meltdown at work. She wonders why no one helped her. “Why can’t everyone see I need help?” she asks.

The recordings of various experiences, from mental breakdowns to brutal attacks, are commonly shared on social media. Instead of intervening, a bystander will just keep filming. But as Jane says in the play, “The phone is never the problem — people do bad things, not phones."

While that’s true, when bad things are posted online, real-life content cleaners — just like Jane in the play — can make something disappear so that no one else has to view it. But at what cost?

Friedlich shared in a 2024 interview with Vulture that he met a content cleaner at a party in 2018 and started writing “Job” the next year. The play opened on Broadway at the Hayes Theater on July 30, 2024, and is a probing look at the worst of what the internet has to offer.

An intentional provocateur, Friedlich excels at asking questions for which there are no answers in “Job.” Instead, the playwright leaves the audience guessing about the tale's end and the true nature of its characters.

I do not know definitively if theater can change hearts and minds (though I certainly hope so), but I do think it can raise awareness around a particular subject. And, after watching “Job,” I hope that if a distressing moment occurs, each of us will resist the urge to record and instead lend a helping hand.

SpeakEasy Stage Company’s production of "Job" runs through Feb. 7 at the Calderwood Pavilion.