Off-Broadway newcomer Sydney Lemmon (left) and theater stalwart Peter Friedman make excellent sparring partners in Max Wolf Friedrich’s new play Job at the Soho Playhouse.
Max Wolf Friedlich packs a boomer–Gen Z clash, thoughts about modern technology, gender politics, liberals’ self-flagellation, the belligerent anxiety that’s become our national character, and a whopper of a twist into the 85-minute run time of Job, his first play produced Off Broadway. Also making her Off-Broadway debut with Job is actress Sydney Lemmon, granddaughter of movie legend Jack, recently seen opposite Cate Blanchett in Tár and opposite the venomous Roy clan on Succession—where her Job costar, Peter Friedman, had a recurring role.
Jane (Lemmon) challenges Loyd (Friedman) on his notions about cellphones and other technology.
In the San Francisco–set two-hander Job, Friedman plays Loyd, a therapist whom Lemmon’s Jane visits in an attempt to get mental-health clearance so she can return to her job at an unnamed tech giant. Jane was put on leave after she had a screaming meltdown in the office—an incident that was recorded by coworkers and went viral. “I was a meme. … I was ‘That feel when it’s Monday’; I was a typical white woman; I was everything wrong with tech; I was how everyone feels thinking about the election,” she says. “I can’t do anything in real life anymore. ... I’m famous, and nobody knows who I am.” It’s one of several remarks by Jane that pierce the essence of some aspect of life in the digital age. In another, she calls out Loyd for sexism and more:
People focus on the bad stuff with phones because they’re afraid. ‘Aah, it’s new, it’s different.’ So they tell young women—the ones who are best at phones—they tell us we’re stupid because they’re afraid of us, afraid of our potential, our sexuality, everything. When a girl’s on her phone, she’s ‘vain,’ she’s ‘self-obsessed.’ No, dude, she has a fucking wilderness skill. I like my phone. It’s not an ‘addiction,’ I’m not ‘antisocial’—it just truly makes me happy.
She also has plenty to say on sociopolitical topics:
That way of thinking, how we’re supposed to look at the world nowadays, where it’s like, ‘Poverty is because of racism in housing, which is because of capitalism,’ and at a certain point you’re just saying everything is fucked and everyone’s abused. And when everything’s connected, it feels like nothing’s connected. … It’s endless and hopeless because you just get trapped in the ‘discourse’ of it all ... instead of actually doing something.
Hyperarticulate even with the many fucks and likes in her speech, Jane is insightful but extremely judgmental, full of opinions even though she acts like caring about anything isn’t worth her time. Despite her hostility toward therapy, she ends up revealing quite a bit about her life as Loyd tries to get at what caused her breakdown. He reveals quite a bit about himself too.
Jane (Lemmon) has to see Loyd (Friedman), a therapist, if she wants her job back. Photographs by Emilio Madrid.
Job is no Analyze This buddy comedy, though. Jane is on edge the whole time. And audience members probably will be as well, since the first view of both characters is Jane aiming a gun at Loyd. While she points the gun, there are three quick back-and-forths between them—each different in tone (conciliatory, fretful, anodyne), each ending abruptly in a blackout, as if they are trying out different scenarios. So the play gets off to a surreal start.
An element of surrealism returns at a few points in the otherwise deeply-grounded-in-reality play, when Loyd suddenly sputters out non sequitur comments, lights flash, and bursts of what sounds like music mixed with static are heard. These effects—created by lighting designer Mextly Couzin and sound design team Jessie Char and Maxwell Neely-Cohen—seem to simulate being “inside” the Internet when users are clicking from page to page and scrolling through or loading data.
Brace yourself for another jolt toward the end of the psychological thriller: Friedlich unloads a shocker in the final minutes, then refuses to wrap it all up neatly. It’s a masterstroke of plot twisting and ambiguity, and while the ending is puzzling, there’s an overall feeling of gratification—in part because of all the timely targets it hits, and even more so because of the actors’ excellent work. Both Friedman and Lemmon embody their characters fully and believably, and they play off each other to riveting effect.
At this point it’s no surprise that Friedman will deliver the goods (he’s been acting on New York stages since before his castmate Lemmon was born), and he fits beautifully into the role of the even-tempered, seemingly dedicated Loyd. But Jane is the showier role, and Lemmon—looking sleep-deprived, soliloquizing about human nature, technology, and injustice—creates an intriguing personality out of this a bundle of nerves as she oscillates between apathy and supreme confidence in her own knowledge and skills.
Max Wolf Friedrich’s Job runs through Oct. 8 at the Soho Playhouse (15 Vandam St.). Performances are 7 p.m. Monday and Thursday through Sunday (as well as Tuesday, Oct. 3), with matinees at 2 p.m. Saturday and Sunday; sohoplayhouse.com.
