In Job, The Cultch presents a psychological thriller for the age of social media
Playwright Max Wolf Friedlich’s award-winning drama is a tense intergenerational showdown between a millennial content moderator and her baby boomer therapist
Elizabeth Barrett and Brian Markinson. Photo by Emily Cooper
The Cultch presents The Search Party’s production of Job at the Historic Theatre from September 29 to October 11
IN MAX WOLF FRIEDLICH’s drama Job, tech-company employee Jane has come to therapist Loyd’s office, seeking to get green-lit to return to work after an on-the-job meltdown has landed her on extended leave.
And that, dear reader, is about all we can tell you without the risk of revealing too much. Brian Markinson, who’s playing Loyd in The Cultch’s production of Job, is happy to talk about the show with Stir, but he’s also determined to keep the conversation spoiler-free.
“What’s great about the play is that it is open to interpretation, and an audience is going to bring their own story to it, and what they think the thing is ultimately about,” he says.
“We have to be intentionally vague about it,” says Markinson’s co-star, Elizabeth Barrett, who is also on the call. “Just by nature of it being a psychological thriller, it’s most satisfying for people if they come in not really knowing anything, I would say. In fact, I would suggest that to people.”
That might come across as a caution against reading the rest of this article, but we shall try to avoid revealing too much. What we can tell you is that the original production of Job opened at New York City’s SoHo Playhouse in September of 2023 before ultimately transferring to Broadway for an extended run at the Hayes Theater the following summer.
Critics loved it. The play was a New York Times Critic’s Pick and earned Friedlich a nomination for best new play at the Outer Critics Circle Awards. Writing for Vulture, Sara Holdren opined: “Job is a horror piece—a Black Mirror episode with the sci-fi dialed down (because the horrors are real).”
It’s no spoiler to reveal that millennial Jane is a content moderator for a social media company—a front-line witness to all the very worst that humanity can meme or tweet—who regards baby boomers like Loyd with withering disdain. That makes for some palpable tension on the stage, and explains why TheaterMania reviewer Zachary Stewart described Job as “taut and verbally lacerating”.
“It brings up stuff,” Markinson acknowledges. “It deals with very intense, very prescient, very today subject matter.”
How does an actor get into the headspace required to take on such an emotionally charged project?
“It’s always lovely when the writing is really good,” Barrett says. “I find that that’s extremely helpful. And when you also pair that with working with a great actor—which I have the pleasure of doing with Brian here—and working with a really great director, Mindy [Parfitt], that really does a lot of the heavy lifting in that department.”
Friedlich has set up a “boomer versus millennial” dynamic that cuts a little deeper than jibes about the price of avocado toast. Job is not, however, devoid of levity, although what strikes one theatregoer as funny might very well make another squirm in their seat.
“I do think the generational chemistry is at times humorous, just in terms of how truthful things can be humorous sometimes,” Barrett says. “There are two very distinct viewpoints in this play that are coming together in a room.”
Given Jane’s job—the very thing that gives the play both its title and its dramatic linchpin—audience members might come away from Job aghast at just how much time they spend doomscrolling on social-media platforms.
“I have, for a couple of years now, been periodically on and off of social media,” says Barrett. “I deactivate my accounts from time to time. So that was something that I was already thinking about. But then in reading this play, I just knew that coming into this process, I actually wanted to try staying off social media for this particular rehearsal period. So, yes, I’m definitely thinking more lately about the sort of content I’m consuming and how that’s ultimately making me feel.”
As for the boomer in the cast, Markinson notes that he doesn’t spend much time staring into the cyber void, especially now. “I’ll sometimes go down that rabbit hole, but I’m finding with what’s happening in the world today, I feel compelled to turn away from that stuff more often than not these days,” he says.
Markinson would find a kindred spirit in millennial Friedlich. In a 2024 interview with Broadway.com, the now 32-year-old playwright revealed that, with the exception of Instagram, he had deleted every social-media app from his phone.
Job isn’t really about the sociological implications of Facebook and TikTok, of course. Or is it? The cast would prefer that you find out for yourself instead of reading about it in a Stir article.
“I think the vaguer we are, the more satisfying it will be for an audience,” Barrett insists. “I believe that this play is delightful, in that the end of it is going to be something that I hope an audience will walk away from and have lots of things to talk about on their way home.”
Markinson concurs. “Max has done a very good job of leaving everything in the audience’s lap, ultimately,” he says. “So I don’t think questions are necessarily answered. I think the audience is going to walk away and there’s going to be arguments. I always think the best kind of theatre is things that really stimulate discourse, and I think this play will do a very good job of that.” 
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