Diagnosis: disoriented

The public and private perils of online engagement crash through the screen and into a therapist’s office in Job, a nervy drama that explores the power of posts and the ethical responsibilities inherent to our respective postings.

Written by New York’s Max Wolf Friedlich and directed by Calgary’s Jack Grinhaus, the opening production of the Winnipeg Jewish Theatre’s season heads to the races with the brandishing of a starter’s gun in the warped offices of Bay Area psychotherapist Lloyd (Dov Mickelson).

Lloyd’s description of his typical patient — young people who are “hopeless and beyond help” — isn’t exactly inspirational.

Blundstone-booted Jane (Jada Rifkin) seems to have made the cut, having been placed on paid administrative leave after a viral meltdown by her employer, an unnamed tech giant on whose campus she’s enrolled as an adjudicator.

A “user care” specialist, Jane is the steel-mesh sieve in the social media sink, sifting through the internet’s most obscene, obscure and offensive content to prevent the pollution of social media’s waters.

Just like her therapist’s, Jane’s career is supposedly grounded in protection. But in an industry where burnout is common, it was only a matter of time before she lost herself in the sludge. Though the work seems thankless, Jane is a voluntary enlistee, viewing her daily task as a protective privilege.

“The internet is where we live. It’s our home, and I’m the frontline of defence,” she says with patriotic duty.

As in any two-hander, the action is defined by the audience’s general expectations of the characters’ inherent power dynamic. From the moment the patient pulls the gun, the playwright subverts those limitations, tilting the remainder of the production askew — a seismic shift that’s reflected in Shauna Jones’ set, a wall-less boomerang where the infrastructure collapses into itself.

Jones’ set, which emphasizes the illusions of framing and forced perspective, provides a solid foundation for the play’s investigation of the same ideas, successfully connecting environment to text.

That skewing of the depth of field allows both Rifkin and Mickelson to produce considerable tension simply by virtue of relative location and choice of seating.

Rather than plunk down on the sofa, Rifkin’s Jane initially perches on the armrest — an act of rebellion that doubles as a dare to Lloyd to not get too comfortable either.

Both actors bring that sensibility to their performances: Mickelson’s vocal delivery is purposefully shaky, reflecting his character’s anxious realization that — even after the weapon is concealed — he’s in the firing path of a loose cannon.

Rifkin’s reactions are aligned with her character’s chosen career, each nervous tick moderated by an internal censor: when she grimaces, she’s careful to prevent her cheeks from moving too much, and at times, it seems as though Jane can hardly bring herself to release her words into the world.

As the session progresses, both actors are forced to confront their characters’ closely held secrets, which are intermittently hinted at throughout the play by startling flashbacks, each foreshadowed by either Siobhan Sleath’s well-concealed lighting design, Dan Petrenko’s appropriately disconcerting sound design, or both.

It’s difficult to discuss the play’s late pivot point — is Lloyd who he says he is, or is he who Jane believes him to be? — without doing injustice to the shock it may provide. But while the twist is truly upsetting and perhaps narratively disorienting, the playwright meekly refuses to tie it up, leaving the audience — which might crave neat resolution — to its own devices in considering who to trust.

“The therapy hour and the therapist’s stage become a social microcosm,” wrote Dr. Irvin Yalom in his 1974 book Every Day Gets A Little Closer: A Twice Told Therapy, composed of post-session reports by both the therapist and his patient, an aspiring novelist named Ginny Elkin. “No need to take a history, no need to ask for descriptions of interpersonal behaviour. Sooner or later, the entire tragic behavioural scroll is unrolled in the office before the eyes of both therapist and patient.”

With Job, the playwright considers what might happen should both parties’ scrolls intersect while an audience bears witness.

The result is by definition a challenging, heavy read.

ben.waldman@freepress.mb.ca