INTERVIEW: ‘Job,’ now in its final weeks, prompts engaging debates
Photo: Job stars Sydney Lemmon and Peter Friedman. Performances continue through March 23. Photo courtesy of Emilio Madrid / Provided by The Press Room with permission.
Over the past several months, the new play Job has taken the top spot in the “Most Talked About Show” category of the New York theater scene. This two-hander, written by Max Wolf Friedlich and directed by Michael Herwitz, explores difficult themes about trust, mental health, employment and the horrors of the digital age. The show is about the character of Jane (Sydney Lemmon), who has been placed on leave from her big tech company because of an office incident. Now, she finds herself across from Loyd (Peter Friedman), a therapist who will have the ultimate say on whether she can return to the job.
To describe any more of the plot would rob future audience members of the opportunity to experience this 80-minute show with fresh eyes. There’s a good chance that theatergoers, not knowing how this story will progress, will find themselves debating certain plot points and character traits for hours after the final blackout. This is a conversation-starter, through and through.
For Herwitz, the journey of bringing Job to the stage has been a most welcome one, and now with only two weeks left in its run, he has been afforded the chance to reflect back on what the past few months have meant to him. The show began as an idea and then snowballed into a theatrical phenomenon, selling out its initial run at the SoHo Playhouse and now selling out each and every night at the Connelly Theater. March 23 appears to be the final date for this engaging, discomfiting night at the theater.
Herwitz, talking with Hollywood Soapbox, said that his friendship with Friedlich goes back a long time, all the way to their high school days. Eventually, after establishing himself in the world of professional theater, Herwitz set up a company called G45 Productions to produce new work, and the playwright brought Job to him hoping to catch his attention. This was in spring 2020, when the world was in an uncertain place about live theater.
The director was invited to watch a Zoom reading of the play, and Herwitz thought they did a “bang up job.” Eventually he joined the project, and the play was entered into SoHo Playhouse’s inaugural Lighthouse Series. They won the competition, which led to a longer run at the Playhouse in fall 2023. Ticket sales were brisk, which led to this current run at the Connelly Theater, and each time new performances have gone on sale, theatergoers have showed up in force. They must be running out of paint on how many times they have listed “extended” on the posters. Recently Job crossed the 100-performance milestone, and producers have recouped their investment for this commercial run.
At the heart of the piece is a question on who to believe and the motivations of each character. For Herwitz, he kept the questioning open-ended during rehearsals. “I didn’t care who was right or who was wrong,” the director said, adding that it’s the “hallmark of good writing” when audiences are invited into the characters’ psyches but not given easy answers. Ultimately he was “intrigued” by these two roles, especially Jane, and he worked with Friedlich and the actors on “moving it from a character study to a full play.”
“I want the audience to understand how she got to where she is,” he said. “She has an everywoman quality, and [it’s important] to hear her plight.”
Luckily, Herwitz had Friedman and Lemmon to interpret these roles on stage. The director had this to say about his colleagues: “They make me look good. These two people own this play. I feel so indebted to them.”
Herwitz believes that audiences are responding to the material because the two actors bring their full selves to their respective portrayals, and the entire creative team is in agreement: Let the questions linger. Herwitz, for example, remembers during rehearsals never talking about what exactly is going on in the play or the individual pasts of each character. “Peter never brought it up to me,” Herwitz said about the Loyd character. “We never talked about. The actors both have versions for themselves.”
When revelations started flying at a recent performance, the audience audibly gasped. Herwitz said he lives for that gasp each and every night. The shock (and discomfort) was intended, mostly because those questions continue to linger. In fact, the director has started timing the gasps. “It could be second 3, 10, 12,” he said. “I see it ripple through the house, and I feel like a puppeteer in the back.” He loves the immediacy and visceral nature of how Friedlich’s creation can upend expectations (or not).
Herwitz remembers realizing, after those first gasps, that Job would have a longer life: “I think we are on to something. I haven’t been in a room like that in a long time. I think this play will have some longevity, including in the psyche [of the audience].”
The director fully admitted that he’s still in disbelief that he has a hit off-Broadway show on his hands, and after March 23, he’ll miss the experience of working with everyone involved in the production. Although he’s unsure how this play has changed him, he knows that these characters have made him think about life and the connections between two people. “It has cemented something in me perhaps,” he said. “There’s a lot of brokenness in the world. … But there’s people who are trying to be the best version of themselves.”
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
Job, written by Max Wolf Friedlich and directed by Michael Herwitz, continues through Saturday, March 23, at the Connelly Theater in New York City. Click here for more information and tickets.
