Theatre veterans would kill for the reviews that Charlotte Dennis has received for her role as Jane in the Coal Mine Theatre production of Max Wolf Friedlich’s 2023 psychological thriller JOB.
About Charlotte Dennis
The actor, 29, comes from Canadian theatre royalty. Her parents are esteemed actors Oliver Dennis and Deborah Drakeford, and she literally grew up in Toronto’s theatre scene. Dennis saw her first play when she was three, and acted on stage for the first time when she was nine.
However, since graduating from the National Theatre School, Dennis has carved her own pathway and takes immense pride in the fact that every role she has undertaken has been hard won by audition. The fiercely independent actor is determined that her career will happen because of her own talent and not her family connections.
To say the role of Jane is challenging is an understatement. JOB closes on May 18, but Dennis emerges from the production a universally acclaimed major talent.
Dennis’ Character Jane in JOB
Friedlich himself was just 29 when JOB was first produced Off-Broadway before transferring for an extended run at the Helen Hayes Theatre. A product of the anxieties of the digital age himself, Friedlich deliberately wrote a chilling confrontation of cultural and generational conflict.
Jane is a content moderator for a big tech company, but because she has had a major meltdown at work that went viral, she can’t get her job back until she gets an okay from therapist Loyd (played by Diego Matamoras) — and Jane desperately wants her job back.
When the play opens Jane is holding a gun aimed at Loyd.
What became very apparent during my zoom conversation with Dennis was her keen intelligence and thoughtful approach to both her craft and world view.
What follows are excerpts from that frank discussion.
The Interview
What was your first impression of JOB?
The play truly is such an incredible piece of writing, very complicated, very dense, very intelligent, very exciting.
What was your first reaction to the character of Jane?
I thought it was brilliant. I felt immediately connected to her, the texture of her language, the way she talks, her sense of humour. And, I understood the way she moved, which is exciting because when you, as an actor, feel at home in the language of a person, it’s easier to put that skin on and off every day. [E]specially in an audition room where you have 10 minutes to show people what you make of the character. It’s so exciting to feel that connection.
When I was watching the play, I thought, this writer has crammed in every possible meme of present day society. There isn’t one topic either from the left or the right that he left out. Did you feel that?
I’m the youngest Millennial so I’m a cuspy Gen Z. It feels very easy to access those memes because it’s what I’ve grown up with. It’s the world that I’ve engaged with from my young life into adulthood. Instagram became a thing when I was in the 11th or 12th grade. Facebook was 8th and 9th grade. I’ve grown up with online access.
And, I remember when social media became pervasive and how it shifted our social dynamic so completely. So, the things talked about in the play feel very familiar to me, the discomfort, the isolation, the pain. And so does the power of it too.
It’s a very contemporary play and I’m a contemporary young woman, and it feels very exciting to be able to say Jane’s words out loud every night to audiences that both understand and also don’t understand. You know, we can feel when audiences have a familiarity with the concepts.
Admittedly, Coal Mine’s audiences are on the elder side.
Yes, the Boomers. The amazing thing about this play is that the Boomers have their character too. Loyd makes some really excellent points as well. I think it’s really good for audiences to be able to hear both sides of the argument without having a singular point of view.
To me, the play is a real commentary on the digital age and the divide, the tension between generations. And, that’s the inescapable nature of human beings and what it means to be living in an age that is so tethered to an online life.
In doing my research for this show, it is quite terrifying what I found about how our brains have developed, and the addiction we feel to devices, and how capitalism has spread to the self. I think the potential is there for something very bad to happen.
Jane is the leftist of the left. She doesn’t have a shred of sympathy for the Boomers because she blames them for everything. Do you sympathize where she is coming from?
I’m a leftist, absolutely leftist. It’s not that Jane has no empathy. It’s that she is on the side of human rights, which is the side that I am on. That’s the core of Jane’s belief system.
Look what she takes on. She witnesses the true atrocities of human nature. And, to me, she’s a superhero, and I mean that with all clarity and empathy. She is incredibly brave and incredibly smart and incredibly good at her job. And she is protecting the rest of us on the internet.
Jane is a content moderator. I didn’t know such a job existed, that someone looks for the worst barbarities on the internet and removes the videos.
I think what she does is horrific, but it’s her mission in life. I also think the points she makes to Loyd about being a young woman in a digital age are very smart, very clear, very true. I have all the sympathy and love for her.
What do you feel about Loyd?
I think he’s very good at his job, and it’s hard to be very good at your job when your job is to work with young women who are, quote unquote, hopeless, who have had the most epic breakdowns. And that makes him a good listener, that makes him curious, that makes him thoughtful. So, I have a lot of sympathy for him — up to a point.
We don’t want to give anything away, but near the end, the playwright pulls a 180 and takes the play off into a new horrifying direction.
Which adds another level to the play.
On one hand, you’ve got this troubled young woman and the psychiatrist. She wants her job back because she thinks she must do it. I found that really interesting, that you go back and do something terrible because it’s important.
And then, there is this shocking plot twist.
What does this tangent add to the play?
What the playwright has done is so smart, and we really don’t get a lot of really good thrillers anymore. It’s so exciting to have a surprise like this in a play where you just don’t see it coming. You think he’s writing an interesting thing about this tension between the generations, and everybody is able to say what they think about each other, and then boom, you get this shock.
Does something like this affect your acting?
It completely changes the dynamic. You’ve got a play and then you have another play. In terms of energy, it’s a really unique challenge to carry Jane’s discovery of the plot twist. It’s been such fun and a lot of work to figure out how to play her in these moments.
Did you ever think for one minute that after Jane’s incredible outburst, why would they even give her a chance to get her job back?
Of course we did think about that, and it does add a layer of complication, but Jane just had a breakdown. It’s not like she did anything wrong, so she was put on indefinite leave.
Can we talk about that epic scream? The psychiatrist plays the tape to remind Jane what her breakdown sounded like, and the audience gets to hear it too. Did you ever in your mind act out what happened in the office?
I did act it, so to speak, because it’s recorded. I didn’t necessarily go back and work out the details of the breakdown, but the sense memory lives in my body. I was standing there while everybody was watching, and I was screaming, and it was a pretty epic experience physically that exists in my body.
What is the importance of this play?
The author says at the beginning of JOB that it is a period piece. It takes place in 2020, before the election, before COVID. It’s a very specific moment in our reality that we lived and experienced. He’s done a really brilliant job in making a contemporary period piece.
I think it’s going to be an absolute time capsule of what the experience is right now. It speaks to a very, very specific moment in our political and psychological landscape. My hope is that this play will live a long, long, long life, and as we move through cycles on this earth, it will be something that stays relevant and thought provoking.
Well, as I said before, Friedlich crammed in every possible meme like Me Too, and Black Lives Matter, and climate change. There isn’t anything that he left out.
That’s because those movements are important and they’re what we should be talking about. What we should be moving towards is a kinder, more generous, more connected world that has empathy for everyone, no matter what. I don’t think he’s trying to cram things in. Rather, I think he’s talking about the things that are at the forefront of our minds, especially on the internet. So yes, the play is absolutely of the now.
So, people will one day look at JOB the way we look at O’Neill, Chekhov and Shakespeare?
Yes, I think that’s absolutely right. The play is a specific moment in time, and I think the specificity is what will make the understanding of the emotional experience felt more later down the line, when this play gets produced in 2042 or what have you.
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