There is a moment in “Job,” the gripping current show at Writers Theatre in Glencoe, where the shrink played by the fine actor Christopher Donahue has a profound realization. The studio-sized Gillian Theatre is small, and you can see his eyes dart around the room, seeking out safety and wordlessly conveying a dawning realization that the young woman before him has changed his life forever.
I should note before I go further that Max Wolf Friedlich’s two-character “Job,” which I reviewed on Broadway in 2024 and now has a first Chicago production from the highly experienced director David Esbjornson, will be a tough watch for some of this theater’s regular patrons. By tough, I reference its subject matter, which involves the darker corners of the internet and the tenseness of both the writing and Esbjornson’s unstinting production; the nice lady in the seat next to me almost jumped out of her seat at least twice and a man on the other side of me also jolted his body as the tension ratcheted up higher and higher. This is not a fun comedy-thriller; it is deadly serious, beginning as it does with a young woman with a gun.
Here is the setup for this taut, 85-minute affair, and then I need to shut up about the plot because the less you know, the better. A young woman, Jane (Rae Gray), has come to see this mental health professional, Loyd, because her workplace, a technology firm, has had enough concerns about her state of mind that it wants a sign-off before she is allowed to return to work. The entire, single-setting play is made up of their session.
Much of this slick drama is a meditation on the differences between how baby boomers — in this case, an old hippy turned seemingly compassionate sage — talk and operate, and how that clashes with the language and moral urgency felt by a very different millennial generation. Jane is in crisis, but also wants to go back to work and thus needs a sign-off. You could say that some of their struggle is pseudo-parental, some of it gender-based, and some a game of cat and mouse with the “Oleanna”-like pair constantly switching roles. It’s also a tussle between what one might call the analog world and a representative from the world of algorithms that work silently to have us pursue their agendas.
Esbjornson handles all this expertly, although I’m not convinced some of the more shocking sound effects and bumped light cues are entirely necessary at this level, given the potency of the writing and the intimacy of the theater, which makes this play land very differently than on Broadway. But that’s a minor issue, especially given the quality of Donahue’s performance and our ability to view it up close. He’s superbly cast here and entirely believable as exactly what he turns out to be, not least because he is such an empathetic actor, crinkly and kind of demeanor (he has played Scrooge at Goodman Theatre). You feel for most of the play that Jane will be safe in his hands and you wonder, of course, whether the reverse will be true.
Gray is a very smart actor and wholly credible as a woman swimming in the amoral landscape of big tech, cursed by having eyes wide open. Which is will be the state of your peepers if you take on a play that deserves its content warning.
Chris Jones is a Tribune critic
cjones5@chicagotribune.com
Review: “Job” (3.5 stars)
When: Through June 14
Where: Writers Theatre, 325 Tudor Court, Glencoe
Running time: 1 hour, 25 minutes
Tickets: $50-125 at 847-242-6000 and writerstheatre.org
