Theatre veterans would kill for the opinions that Charlotte Dennis has obtained for her position as Jane within the Coal Mine Theatre manufacturing of Max Wolf Friedlich’s 2023 psychological thriller JOB.
About Charlotte Dennis
The actor, 29, comes from Canadian theatre royalty. Her mother and father are esteemed actors Oliver Dennis and Deborah Drakeford, and he or she actually grew up in Toronto’s theatre scene. Dennis noticed her first play when she was three, and acted on stage for the primary time when she was 9.
Nevertheless, since graduating from the Nationwide Theatre Faculty, Dennis has carved her personal pathway and takes immense satisfaction in the truth that each position she has undertaken has been laborious gained by audition. The fiercely unbiased actor is set that her profession will occur due to her personal expertise and never her household connections.
To say the position of Jane is difficult is an understatement. JOB closes on Could 18, however Dennis emerges from the manufacturing a universally acclaimed main expertise.
Dennis’ Character Jane in JOB
Friedlich himself was simply 29 when JOB was first produced Off-Broadway earlier than transferring for an prolonged run on the Helen Hayes Theatre. A product of the anxieties of the digital age himself, Friedlich intentionally wrote a chilling confrontation of cultural and generational battle.
Jane is a content material moderator for an enormous tech firm, however as a result of she has had a serious meltdown at work that went viral, she will be able to’t get her job again till she will get an okay from therapist Loyd (performed by Diego Matamoras) — and Jane desperately desires her job again.
When the play opens Jane is holding a gun geared toward Loyd.
What turned very obvious throughout my zoom dialog with Dennis was her eager intelligence and considerate method to each her craft and world view.
What follows are excerpts from that frank dialogue.
The Interview
What was your first impression of JOB?
The play actually is such an unbelievable piece of writing, very difficult, very dense, very clever, very thrilling.
What was your first response to the character of Jane?
I believed it was sensible. I felt instantly linked to her, the feel of her language, the best way she talks, her sense of humour. And, I understood the best way she moved, which is thrilling as a result of while you, as an actor, really feel at residence within the language of an individual, it’s simpler to place that pores and skin on and off day-after-day. [E]specifically in an audition room the place you may have 10 minutes to indicate folks what you make of the character. It’s so thrilling to really feel that connection.
After I was watching the play, I believed, this author has crammed in each attainable meme of current day society. There isn’t one subject both from the left or the appropriate that he unnoticed. Did you are feeling that?
I’m the youngest Millennial so I’m a cuspy Gen Z. It feels very straightforward to entry these memes as a result of it’s what I’ve grown up with. It’s the world that I’ve engaged with from my younger life into maturity. Instagram turned a factor once I was within the eleventh or twelfth grade. Fb was eighth and ninth grade. I’ve grown up with on-line entry.
And, I keep in mind when social media turned pervasive and the way it shifted our social dynamic so utterly. So, the issues talked about within the play really feel very acquainted to me, the discomfort, the isolation, the ache. And so does the ability of it too.
It’s a really up to date play and I’m a recent younger lady, and it feels very thrilling to have the ability to say Jane’s phrases out loud each night time to audiences that each perceive and likewise don’t perceive. You recognize, we will really feel when audiences have a familiarity with the ideas.
Admittedly, Coal Mine’s audiences are on the elder aspect.
Sure, the Boomers. The superb factor about this play is that the Boomers have their character too. Loyd makes some actually glorious factors as nicely. I believe it’s actually good for audiences to have the ability to hear either side of the argument with out having a singular standpoint.
To me, the play is an actual commentary on the digital age and the divide, the stress between generations. And, that’s the inescapable nature of human beings and what it means to be residing in an age that’s so tethered to an internet life.
In doing my analysis for this present, it’s fairly terrifying what I discovered about how our brains have developed, and the habit we really feel to units, and the way capitalism has unfold to the self. I believe the potential is there for one thing very unhealthy to occur.
Jane is the leftist of the left. She doesn’t have a shred of sympathy for the Boomers as a result of she blames them for all the pieces. Do you sympathize the place she is coming from?
I’m a leftist, completely leftist. It’s not that Jane has no empathy. It’s that she is on the aspect of human rights, which is the aspect that I’m on. That’s the core of Jane’s perception system.
Look what she takes on. She witnesses the true atrocities of human nature. And, to me, she’s a superhero, and I imply that with all readability and empathy. She is extremely courageous and extremely sensible and extremely good at her job. And she or he is defending the remainder of us on the web.
Jane is a content material moderator. I didn’t know such a job existed, that somebody appears to be like for the worst barbarities on the web and removes the movies.
I believe what she does is horrific, but it surely’s her mission in life. I additionally assume the factors she makes to Loyd about being a younger lady in a digital age are very sensible, very clear, very true. I’ve all of the sympathy and love for her.
What do you are feeling about Loyd?
I believe he’s excellent at his job, and it’s laborious to be excellent at your job when your job is to work with younger ladies who’re, quote unquote, hopeless, who’ve had probably the most epic breakdowns. And that makes him an excellent listener, that makes him curious, that makes him considerate. So, I’ve quite a lot of sympathy for him — up to a degree.
We don’t wish to give something away, however close to the top, the playwright pulls a 180 and takes the play off into a brand new horrifying path.
Which provides one other stage to the play.
On one hand, you’ve acquired this troubled younger lady and the psychiatrist. She desires her job again as a result of she thinks she should do it. I discovered that basically attention-grabbing, that you simply return and do one thing horrible as a result of it’s vital.
After which, there may be this surprising plot twist.
What does this tangent add to the play?
What the playwright has finished is so sensible, and we actually don’t get quite a lot of actually good thrillers anymore. It’s so thrilling to have a shock like this in a play the place you simply don’t see it coming. You assume he’s writing an attention-grabbing factor about this stress between the generations, and everyone is ready to say what they give thought to one another, after which growth, you get this shock.
Does one thing like this have an effect on your performing?
It utterly adjustments the dynamic. You’ve acquired a play after which you may have one other play. By way of vitality, it’s a very distinctive problem to hold Jane’s discovery of the plot twist. It’s been such enjoyable and quite a lot of work to determine the right way to play her in these moments.
Did you ever assume for one minute that after Jane’s unbelievable outburst, why would they even give her an opportunity to get her job again?
After all we did take into consideration that, and it does add a layer of complication, however Jane simply had a breakdown. It’s not like she did something flawed, so she was placed on indefinite depart.
Can we discuss that epic scream? The psychiatrist performs the tape to remind Jane what her breakdown seemed like, and the viewers will get to listen to it too. Did you ever in your thoughts act out what occurred within the workplace?
I did act it, so to talk, as a result of it’s recorded. I didn’t essentially return and work out the main points of the breakdown, however the sense reminiscence lives in my physique. I used to be standing there whereas everyone was watching, and I used to be screaming, and it was a reasonably epic expertise bodily that exists in my physique.
What’s the significance of this play?
The creator says originally of JOB that it’s a interval piece. It takes place in 2020, earlier than the election, earlier than COVID. It’s a really particular second in our actuality that we lived and skilled. He’s finished a very sensible job in making a recent interval piece.
I believe it’s going to be an absolute time capsule of what the expertise is true now. It speaks to a really, very particular second in our political and psychological panorama. My hope is that this play will stay a protracted, lengthy, lengthy life, and as we transfer by means of cycles on this earth, it is going to be one thing that stays related and thought frightening.
Effectively, as I mentioned earlier than, Friedlich crammed in each attainable meme like Me Too, and Black Lives Matter, and local weather change. There isn’t something that he unnoticed.
That’s as a result of these actions are vital and so they’re what we ought to be speaking about. What we ought to be transferring in direction of is a kinder, extra beneficiant, extra linked world that has empathy for everybody, it doesn’t matter what. I don’t assume he’s attempting to cram issues in. Reasonably, I believe he’s speaking in regards to the issues which can be on the forefront of our minds, particularly on the web. So sure, the play is totally of the now.
So, folks will in the future take a look at JOB the best way we take a look at O’Neill, Chekhov and Shakespeare?
Sure, I believe that’s completely proper. The play is a selected second in time, and I believe the specificity is what’s going to make the understanding of the emotional expertise felt extra later down the road, when this play will get produced in 2042 or what have you ever.
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Paula Citron is a Toronto-based freelance arts journalist and broadcaster who hosts her personal web site, paulacitron.ca. For over 25 years, she was senior dance author for The Globe and Mail, affiliate editor of Opera Canada journal, arts reviewer for Classical 96.3 FM, and dance previews contributor to Toronto Life journal. She has been a visitor lecturer for numerous cultural teams and universities, notably on the position of the critic/reviewer, and has been a panellist on COC podcasts. Earlier than assuming a full-time journalism profession, Ms. Citron was a member of the drama division of the Claude Watson Faculty for the Arts.