A PRESSURE COOKER OF A PRODUCTION

A thriller that examines the effects of social media

Josephine Moshiri Elwood (Jane) and Dennis Trainor Jr. (Loyd) pull out all the stops in Job, an 80-minute intermission-free exploration of the effects of social media on those who produce it and those who consume it. Jane has been sent to meet with Loyd, a crisis therapist, after her meltdown in her social media company office is captured on videos that go viral. Loyd’s job is to certify that Jane is capable of returning to her job—but Jane shows up for the session with a gun and things spin out of control from there. 

Josephine Moshiri Elwood and Dennis Trainor Jr. 

Jane and Loyd never leave Loyd’s well-appointed office (Peyton Tavares, scenic designer). But the therapist’s office that should be a refuge of safety and comfort for the revelation and resolution of psychological challenges instead becomes a testing ground between two equally determined characters. Their dance of deception, revelation, and manipulation pushes them apart, pulls them together, and brings them into a potentially violent confrontation in a series of well-orchestrated verbal exchanges and physical gestures.

Josephine Moshiri Elwood and Dennis Trainor Jr.

Director Marianna Bassham pulls all the pieces together to keep the pressure rising in this taut production. Lighting by Amanda E. Fallon and sound by Lee Schuna simulate panic attacks. Max Wolf Friedlich’s script is full of twists and whiplash dialogue; the ambiguous conclusion leaves the audience with plenty to process and consider.

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photos by Benjamin Rose Photography

Job
SpeakEasy Stage Company
Boston Center for the Arts, 527 Tremont Street
80 minutes with no intermission
ends on February 7, 2026
for tickets, visit SpeakEasyStage

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BIO: Lynne Weiss is a member of the Boston Theater Critics Association. Her work has also appeared in Literary Ladies Guide and in The Common, Black Warrior Review, and the Ploughshares Blog. She has an MFA from UMass Amherst and has received residencies from Yaddo, the Millay Colony, and Vermont Studio Center and grants from the Massachusetts Cultural Council. A lifelong social justice activist, she is at work on a novel set in 1930s Cornwall. Her reviews, travel tales, and progressively optimistic opinions are on her substack.