Review: A Thrilling JOB at SpeakEasy Stage Company

Jobs are often the bane of one’s existence. We can’t always live in harmony with them, but we can’t live without them either – a point that informs the plot of “Job,” a psychological thriller by Max Wolf Friedlich now being given a riveting New England premiere by SpeakEasy Stage Company at the Roberts Studio Theatre, in the Calderwood Pavilion at the Boston Center for the Arts, through February 7.

Developed by producer–dramaturg Hannah Getts, and depicting a January 2020 therapy session between a high-strung Jane and her therapist in San Franisco in January 2020, the drama was originally written by Friedlich as part of IAMA Theatre Company's emerging writers’ group. It opened a sold-out month-long run in September 2023 which was followed by a return engagement at the Connelly Theater; performances from January through March 2024. It transferred to Broadway’s Helen Hayes Theatre from July 15 through September 29.

The “job” of the title belongs to Jane, a young woman whose work as a content creator at a San Francisco tech company has her reviewing and removing repugnant posts from the internet – who may be in danger of losing it altogether. It seems the grotesque nature of the content she reviews has led her to a workplace unraveling that quickly went viral. Railing against her unwanted internet fame, Jane says, “I was everywhere on earth, screaming like a crazy person and being a crazy person. I was a meme.” Her company has stipulated that any chance that Jane has to return to work will require clearance by a therapist.

We learn this backstory shortly after Jane makes a startling entrance into Loyd’s Mission style office – executed by scenic designer Peyton Tavares and complemented by E. Rosser’s costumes, including a Southwestern cardigan worn by the therapist.

Under Marianna Bassham’s taut direction, this two-hander is an achingly authentic face-off  by the perfectly paired Josephine Moshiri Elwood, as the tightly wound Jane, and Dennis Trainor Jr., as seasoned therapist Loyd, wastes not a single moment in making its timely points about the unreasonable expectations and harshness of contemporary work culture and social media’s virtual obliteration of privacy.

Indeed, Elwood (“Prayer for the French Republic” at The Huntington; “English,” “Hand to God,” and “The Whale” at SpeakEasy Stage; “Our Town” at Lyric Stage Boston) and Trainor (“How I Learned to Drive” at Actors’ Shakespeare Project; “The Inheritance” at SpeakEasy Stage) square off searingly from the get-go, never taking their eyes off one another.

Positioning them mostly opposite each other, Bassham has created a kind of seesaw of two minds each out for control and the upper hand. Subtle but unsettling moments, such as when Jane moves a chair or when the unseen next patient knocks on the office door, raise the tension and may just raise the hair on the back of some audience members’ necks. What you won’t do is look away.

The high-stakes nature of the story holds focus throughout the 80-minute single act, while Amanda E. Fallon’s lighting and Lee Schuna’s sound design serve to raise the temperature of the proceedings as we grip our seats and wonder what will happen next.

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