{"id":365342,"date":"2025-03-10T07:55:34","date_gmt":"2025-03-10T11:55:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dctheaterarts.org\/?p=365342"},"modified":"2025-03-10T07:55:34","modified_gmt":"2025-03-10T11:55:34","slug":"a-theater-nerd-confronts-theater-for-boys","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dctheaterarts.org\/2025\/03\/10\/a-theater-nerd-confronts-theater-for-boys\/","title":{"rendered":"A theater nerd confronts \u2018theater for boys\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

i. basic<\/strong><\/h2>\n

\u00a0<\/strong>The first time I encountered what I call a \u201ctheater bro,\u201d it was in my first semester of college.<\/p>\n

It was September 2017. I was attending Wesleyan University, a small liberal arts school in Middletown, Connecticut \u2014 it\u2019s a college that carries prestige for people who actually know that it exists. As I nervously went through my first week of classes, in every cafeteria conversation, it felt like I was being interviewed to see if I\u2019d be a good friend or collaborator. It was the year after Hamilton <\/em>swept the Tonys, and the musical\u2019s creator, Lin-Manuel Miranda, had just become the university\u2019s most famous alumnus. Every student at Wesleyan, even if we didn\u2019t admit it, believed we could also make it big through our art.<\/p>\n

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LEFT: Culture critic Nathan Pugh (photo courtesy of the author); RIGHT: Playwright Max Wolf Friedlich (photo courtesy of Signature Theatre).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Walking around campus, I had a serious case of imposter syndrome. Somehow, I\u2019d schemed my way into a world where every guy was experimental, edgy, and cool. I could only pass as one of them. Back in my Virginian private school, I was surrounded by more traditional \u201cbros\u201d: guys who told crass jokes, got lacrosse scholarships, and sported dirty Nike socks and ratty mullets. Up at Wesleyan, I was surrounded by a new artsy kind of bro: guys who gave you unprompted fun facts about the film Whiplash<\/em>, complained about Middletown being too rural compared to Manhattan, and donned so many beanies to the point of parody<\/a>.<\/p>\n

One evening I was hanging out in the common room of Butterfields: a dank, winding dorm colloquially referred to as the \u201cButts.\u201d A lanky guy struck up a conversation with me, and I mentioned that I was in a class called \u201cAward-Winning Playwrights.\u201d When the guy asked me what my favorite play was, I froze. Before this class, I\u2019d only read Shakespeare and Tennessee Williams; I didn\u2019t have an idiosyncratic answer to offer. The first play assigned in my class was Angels in America<\/em>, so I blurted that out.<\/p>\n

\u201cBasic choice, but a classic,\u201d he responded. He then gave a long anecdote on Annie Baker: how he\u2019d performed her observational but profound plays, and how I should really read them. I nodded along, trying to hide the sting of humiliation. Back in Virginia, I was eccentric compared to the bros. But here, I was \u201cbasic\u201d compared to them. I needed to study more plays so that I could prove myself as belonging with the theater in-crowd.<\/p>\n

I soon became friends with this lanky guy. But for years, I resented him for being so dismissive in our first conversation, for making me feel so small. It wasn\u2019t until recently that I realized he was trying to prove himself to me. At the time, he was insecure, too.<\/p>\n

ii. good person<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Jane \u2014 the protagonist of the Max Von Friedlich play Job<\/em><\/a>, now running at Arlington\u2019s Signature Theatre \u2014 also resents the people from her college. She\u2019s in one of the most intense hours of her life, holding her work-assigned therapist hostage. Yet she\u2019s still drawn to mocking her alma mater, and the virtue-signalling<\/a> Instagram posts that flooded that kind of world. Her terrified therapist asks if she\u2019d ever publicly share those thoughts, but Jane rejects the premise.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t own it though,\u201d she says about herself. \u201cI\u2019d never put that out there. I\u2019d get ripped apart\u2026 On like Twitter or Instagram. Like people I went to college with would explode at me.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Eric Hissom (Loyd) and Jordan Slattery (Jane) in \u2018Job\u2019 at Signature Theatre. Photo by Christopher Mueller.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Explosions \u2014 psychological, physical, and societal \u2014 keep happening for Jane, with no relief in sight. Over the course of an extreme 90 minutes, Jane holds her therapist captive, alternately arguing, pleading, threatening, and opening up to him. The dialogue feels startlingly familiar to the words I\u2019ve spoken to my own friends, in college and beyond. Seeing Job<\/em>, I felt uncomfortably similar to Jane. This may be because Friedlich and I have similar experiences. He graduated from Wesleyan in the spring of 2017; we missed sharing the campus by one semester.<\/p>\n

Job <\/em>opens with Jane (Jordan Slattery) wielding a gun toward a therapist, Loyd (Eric Hissom). Loyd soon convinces Jane to put down her gun, and she apologizes profusely, placing her weapon gingerly into her Trader Joe\u2019s tote bag. Still, she won\u2019t let Loyd leave the room \u2014 she\u2019s come to his office to get approval to return to work, and she won\u2019t leave without it.<\/p>\n

The rest of the play functions as a tense standoff. Working professionally and defensively, Loyd starts asking questions about Jane\u2019s upbringing and career. With much reservation, Jane shares that she was working as an online content moderator at a technology company until she had a mental breakdown. An incident of her screaming went viral, and she was placed on paid leave, despite desperate attempts to return to work.<\/p>\n

Throughout their conversation, Jane constantly pushes back on Loyd\u2019s therapy-speak, and starts grilling him on his own life. Loyd is a Berkeley graduate working in downtown San Francisco, a folksy type who\u2019s cautious about technology and avid about his teenage children. The clash between the two characters becomes generational. Jane is rebuking the liberal world she\u2019s inheriting from Loyd. Loyd is defending that world while wielding more institutional power than Jane.<\/p>\n

Watching Job <\/em>at Signature Theatre, I saw a similar generational clash happening in the audience. Job<\/em> was originally staged in two off-Broadway venues, before a 14-week Broadway run<\/a> in 2024. The play gained greater notoriety after a TikTok video<\/a> praised the show\u2019s writing and direction, which then spurred a group of trendy, young New Yorkers to watch the show.<\/p>\n

These New York audiences probably aligned themselves politically and generationally with Jane. But much of the Virginia audience, composed of middle-aged regional theater subscribers, probably aligned themselves at the start of the play with Loyd. There were a few times at the performance I attended where I was the only one laughing at Jane\u2019s snarky jokes \u2014 specifically when she calls herself a \u201cXanax girlie\u201d and admits that all of her college friends \u201cwere literally socialists.\u201d Maybe I only laughed at these jokes because I\u2019m Gen Z. Maybe I\u2019m just fluent in Jane\u2019s brainrot<\/a> culture, which isn\u2019t as popular in DC.<\/p>\n

Even as Jane and Loyd\u2019s conversation twists in unexpected directions, Jane keeps bringing up her time in college. It\u2019s like a rash in her memory, one that she can\u2019t stop scratching. She calls her college friends \u201ccringey rich assholes.\u201d She remembers a toxic college relationship, which had abundant sex but limited intimacy. Jane even rails against her school\u2019s aesthetic:<\/p>\n

\n

JANE: <\/strong>\u2026Literally all I can remember about the first semester of college was trying to figure out how to dress like I cared about social justice and the cafeteria workers\u2019 union and gender-netural bathrooms. To give a shit I had to smell like shit – I had to wear ratty t-shirts to be publicly accepted as a good person.
\nLOYD:<\/strong>\u00a0Did you enjoy college?
\nJANE:<\/strong>\u00a0Loved it.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

In these lines, I hear echoes of my experiences with theater bros. I applied for early decision to Wesleyan because of its collaborative environment (as opposed to the cutthroat Ivy League). But when I arrived on campus, it was jarring to face new pressures. Every student seemed to compete for status as the most <\/em>socially conscious, the most <\/em>radical, the most <\/em>controversial. In the face of this, many Wesleyan students found a subversive pleasure in being \u201cnormie.\u201d<\/a> In an academic world where everyone strove to be avant-garde, many resisted by behaving as mainstream as possible. I\u2019ll admit, I felt oddly disruptive if I wore a polo shirt to a class.<\/p>\n

The desire for mainstream appeal was shared by the university administration. In the wake of the 2016 election, Wesleyan University President Michael Roth promoted what he called \u201cintellectual diversity\u201d<\/a> and the expansion of student athletics. \u201cAthletes on campus have different perspectives from the avant-garde surrealist pop guitar player from Park Slope,\u201d Roth said in a Slate <\/em><\/a>article<\/a> published during my first semester. \u201cYou can\u2019t be a caricature of yourself,\u201d he continued.<\/p>\n

Even if my college has a caricatured reputation as activist and abrasive, it\u2019s an energy that I love (like Job<\/em>\u2019s Jane). At its best, the university felt like a refuge, where gays and artists could gather away from our stifling hometowns. But also like Jane, I knew this refuge was an illusion. A few students had families that gave them immense power on campus and beyond. Their last names appeared in film credits and Broadway playbills and on the sides of buildings. In Job<\/em>, Jane also arrives at this bitter realization: \u201cBut one day it just sort of hit me – I was nothing like them. \/ I didn\u2019t have an uncle who could get me a job on a TV show.\u201d<\/p>\n

I felt relief hearing this line, hearing unspoken privileges finally named. But I also knew these words were coming from a character that was jaded and violent. Was Friedlich asking the audience to understand someone like me, even if I was rendered delusional? And did Friedlich write these words as a self-critique?<\/p>\n

iii. boygenius<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Like many Wesleyan students, Friedlich grew up in New York City and was introduced to the arts at a young age. He grew up going to a live-action roleplaying summer camp, and in high school, he wrote a play called SleepOver<\/em><\/a>. After studying American studies at Wesleyan, he continued producing his own work, briefly wrote for television, and joined playwriting programs<\/a>. Friedlich was inspired to write Job <\/em>partially through two experiences: speaking to an overworked content moderator and helping run accounts for the fictional influencer Lil Miquela<\/a>.<\/p>\n

On one hand, Friedlich himself is the epitome of the \u201ctheater bro\u201d that Jane and I resent: a Manhattan socialite who had industry advantages before stepping on a college campus. Just look at how Wesleyan University Magazine tells Friedlich\u2019s story<\/a>. A feature on him is very specific about the ways he\u2019s had a \u201cD.I.Y. approach\u201d to theater, like raising $10,000 through Kickstarter. But when discussing his family\u2019s career influence, the article suddenly turns vague: \u201cHis parents\u2026 have supported his artistic aspirations and helped him make connections along the way.\u201d I wish I had parents who could make connections like that.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, Freidlich\u2019s upbringing isn\u2019t that different from my own. I\u2019m pretty much the DC equivalent of a Manhattan socialite: I went to an expensive private school, never had to worry about financial independence until the age of 18, and did <\/em>read Shakespeare before college. I\u2019ve benefited from all of the systems I\u2019m calling out.<\/p>\n

Maybe I\u2019m angry that, even with my vast privileges, there are people like Friedlich with even greater privileges. Maybe I don\u2019t hate Max Wolf Friedlich as much as I want to be <\/em>him. Maybe my resentment for him comes from a sublimated envy. Part of this envy comes from knowing Friedlich\u2019s career path is impossible for me to follow. When Friedlich graduated college in 2017, he could explore the theater industry and develop Job <\/em>in small venues like the Connelly Theater. When I graduated college in 2021, I found a theater industry limping from the pandemic, with even fewer entry points. No one\u2019s producing plays at the Connelly nowadays<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In another world, I\u2019d love to read the script of Job <\/em>blindly, not knowing the writer\u2019s age or background. But theater doesn\u2019t exist in a vacuum, and Friedlich\u2019s status as a boygenius wunderkind allows Job <\/em>to be produced. There are writers similar to Friedlich who also explore the disaster of the Internet. Watching Job<\/em>, I\u2019m reminded of the chronically online characters satirized by Patricia Lockwood<\/a>, Tony Tulathimutte<\/a>, and Honor Levy<\/a>. What distinguishes Friedlich from his colleagues, and what catapults him into fame, is his role as a dramatist. He\u2019s highly attuned to the audiences hearing his words and writes for<\/em> them. In a profile for <\/a>Vulture<\/em><\/a>, Friedlich shared his pride that Job <\/em>was attracting niche subcultures: \u201cWe\u2019re a hit among teenagers; we\u2019re a hit among NYU people and Dimes Square motherfuckers.\u201d<\/p>\n

As Friedlich navigates an increasingly commercial career, he\u2019s drawn further from these subcultures. I know about the Dimes Square<\/a> scene out of morbid curiosity, but most people watching Job <\/em>in Virginia don\u2019t. In that same Vulture <\/em>profile, Friedlich acknowledged his capitalist impulses, saying \u201chalf-jokingly\u201d that he\u2019s making \u201ctheater for boys.\u201d He stated: \u201cIf the industry is going to survive, we need 30-year-old bros to get onboard thinking this is a cool thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

I see Friedlich\u2019s concept of \u201ctheater for boys\u201d as similar to Michael Roth\u2019s concept of \u201cintellectual diversity.\u201d Both are trying to welcome a male demographic into a space where they\u2019ve previously felt sidelined. I\u2019m sympathetic to this mission, but when I hear \u201ctheater for boys,\u201d my first instinct is to roll my eyes. I mean, come on. Thirty-year-old bros already run Silicon Valley and Hollywood and the government \u2014 they don\u2019t need more <\/em>space, especially in one of the few industries where marginalized people work consistently. We don\u2019t need affirmative action for white guys. Of course, Friedlich, catering to a bro crowd, can make it to Broadway early in his career. Meanwhile Paula Vogel, writing mostly about queer women, had to wait decades for the same career honor. This double standard isn\u2019t Friedlich\u2019s fault, but it\u2019s an advantage for him.<\/p>\n

Whether we like it or not, the U.S. government is creating a new era of \u201ctheater for boys,\u201d particularly in DC. The National Endowment for the Arts is eliminating<\/a> any funding for works that support diversity, equity, and inclusion. It\u2019s also introduced \u201cgender ideology\u201d restrictions<\/a> on funding. Lin-Manuel Miranda recently pulled <\/a>Hamilton<\/em><\/a> out of the biggest performing arts organization in DC, and its new leadership responded by saying<\/a>, \u201cHamilton can\u2019t perform for Republicans\u201d and \u201cStop the intolerance.\u201d<\/p>\n

The two worlds I anxiously navigated as a teenager (conservative Virginia bros and artsy Wesleyan bros) are colliding at an alarming pace. I feel like I\u2019m going insane. If the current political administration had its way, there would only <\/em>be theater for boys, and nothing else. Max Wolf Friedlich should be careful what he wishes for.<\/p>\n

iv. kill<\/strong><\/h2>\n

The first time I felt myself becoming a theater bro, I was midway through college.<\/p>\n

I\u2019d been compensating for my freshman-year insecurity by taking as many theater classes as possible. In one class, we read Andrea Abi-Karam<\/a>\u2019s poetry collection Extratransmission<\/em><\/a>. The self-described \u201cpunk poet-performer\u201d was visiting our class, and one of our assignments was to ask Abi-Karam a question directly. I was fascinated by their poem \u201cKILL BRO\/KILL COP,\u201d which explores male violence through the police, military, and literature. The poem\u2019s speaker imagines enacting violence in return, imploring: \u201ckill all the bro poets. actually you know what, kill all the bros. kill all the power dynamics in the room.\u201d<\/p>\n

I wondered why Abi-Karam chose the word \u201cbro\u201d as their enemy. Why not \u201cman,\u201d or \u201cdude,\u201d or even \u201cbruh\u201d? But when I asked Abi-Karam this very question, they responded incredulously: \u201cBecause I just really hate bros.\u201d Even though I asked the question in good faith, the poet stared at me with such disdain. I could tell they found my question condescending. In Abi-Karam\u2019s eyes, I was just another bro.<\/p>\n

In too many ways, I\u2019ve become the Wesleyan theater bro that I\u2019ve always resented. I mostly cover plays like Fairview<\/em><\/a> and Slave Play<\/em><\/a> \u2014 they\u2019re confrontational and somewhat inaccessible to people just discovering theater. When my Wesleyan friend was putting together an interview<\/a> with Annie Baker, she reached out to me since I\u2019m<\/em> now the guy who recommends that playwright to people. My status as a Wesleyan grad also confers a prestige I couldn\u2019t have imagined in my freshman year there. \u201cYou guys are everywhere <\/em>in theater,\u201d an editor of an arts publication recently told me. This mystique might be the reason I\u2019ve stayed in DC, not moving to Brooklyn like most of my college friends. Compared to the khaki-wearing crowd of the nation\u2019s capital, I\u2019m finally experimental, edgy, and cool.<\/p>\n

So many people discover who they are by critiquing archetypes. Abi-Karam critiques bros. Job<\/em>\u2019s Jane critiques Loyd\u2019s entire generation. Dimes Square celebrities launched their careers by critiquing liberals, and journalists gained<\/a> notoriety<\/a> by critiquing Dimes Square. Wesleyan grads make fun<\/a> of<\/a> Wesleyan<\/a>. Railing against someone can be creatively fulfilling, so we create enemies in our heads to playfully and cruelly mock.<\/p>\n

Max Wolf Friedlich has become that enemy for me. Anyone who\u2019s willing to say he\u2019s making \u201ctheater for boys\u201d is an easy target for derision. True, the nuances of Friedlich\u2019s ironic humor probably don\u2019t translate well in a written format. But reading that Vulture<\/em> profile, I saw someone antithetical to the kind of artist I\u2019m trying to be.<\/p>\n

Friedlich comes across so confidently in that profile, but Job<\/em> is full of vexed insecurity. At Signature Theatre, I felt completely unnerved by Jane and how deeply she was self-conscious and critical of her place in the world. It seemed like Friedlich was reaching through the stage to slap himself in the face, to call himself<\/em> a \u201ccringey rich asshole.\u201d<\/p>\n

Perhaps Max Wolf Friedlich\u2019s real enemy is himself. He knows the caricature he sometimes embodies, and keeps scratching at that figure in his memories, knowing it\u2019ll make him miserable. There\u2019s a kind of perverse pleasure in eviscerating yourself on the page. I know it well; it\u2019s why I\u2019m writing this essay. Maybe Friedlich already knows how other people resent him, because he\u2019s felt the same resentment for himself. Maybe he really is just like me.<\/p>\n

v. obligation<\/strong><\/h2>\n

If Friedlich writes \u201ctheater for boys,\u201d why did he make the protagonist of Job <\/em>a woman? I think it\u2019s to illustrate how Internet culture specifically targets women. In the fall of 2019, close to when Job <\/em>is set, writer Jia Tolentino published the essay \u201cAlways Be Optimizing.\u201d<\/a> She argued there\u2019s a contemporary pressure for everyone to \u201coptimize\u201d themselves, to constantly perform (online and IRL) for maximum efficiency. \u201cIt\u2019s very easy, under conditions of artificial but continually escalating obligation, to find yourself organizing your life around practices you find ridiculous and possibly indefensible,\u201d Tolentino wrote. \u201cWomen have known this intimately for a long time.\u201d<\/p>\n

As Job <\/em>progresses, audiences discover Jane\u2019s escalating obligations. As a content moderator for a tech company, she watches the worst of humanity and purges it from the Internet, so no one but her must witness it online. Unlike Tolentino, Jane understands her tortured work as a noble quest. \u201cI feel it all – and it\u2019s a privilege to suffer as much as I do,\u201d she states. She later says that she\u2019s battling a natural evil, configuring herself as a kind of classic avenger heroine. Like Eve, she\u2019s cursed with knowledge. Like Cassandra, she\u2019s doomed to speak the truth to a world that doesn\u2019t believe her. Jane is an agent of self-justified chaos.<\/p>\n

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Eric Hissom (Loyd) and Jordan Slattery (Jane) in \u2018Job\u2019 at Signature Theatre. Photo by Christopher Mueller.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

More than anything in the Signature production of Job<\/em>, it\u2019s Jordan Slattery\u2019s performance as Jane that\u2019s stayed with me. She opens the show in a dazed terror, brazenly wielding her gun but also cradling her tote bag like a child. Slattery interprets the character as a woman overwhelmed with duty but fearless in her conviction. Slattery\u2019s spoken lines are sarcastic and terse, but her eyes betray a vulnerability that dialogue can\u2019t express.<\/p>\n

Slattery is doing what great actors do: honoring a playwright\u2019s world but somehow moving beyond anything that playwright could imagine. I was disappointed by the ending of Job<\/em>: the show felt like a tightly constructed rollercoaster, where twists thrilled me but also felt inevitable. Yet as Friedlich\u2019s story stayed on a set track, Slattery\u2019s disturbing performance made me feel like I was flying off the rails.<\/p>\n

My hope is that all audience members of Job<\/em> can follow the lead of Slattery, using Friedlich\u2019s play as the foundation to create our own worlds. It\u2019s an approach we can apply to every part of the theater. I don\u2019t necessarily endorse Jane\u2019s crusade in Job<\/em>. But I do understand her command to \u201cfeel everything,\u201d because my privilege and my suffering, like hers, feel impossibly intertwined. Even though I don\u2019t agree with hardly anything Friedlich said in that Vulture <\/em>profile, I find his unfiltered honesty to be weirdly aspirational. I want to be just as candid in my own work. And that first-semester conversation at Wesleyan? It\u2019s forged me into the writer I am today. I\u2019ve optimized myself into the very artist that intimidated me.<\/p>\n

If I really have become the elite Wesleyan theater bro that I\u2019ve always hated, I hope I can weaponize my privilege for a good cause that\u2019s still confrontational. When I\u2019m feeling most generous, that\u2019s what I see Friedlich doing in Job<\/em>. Even in Friedlich\u2019s \u201ctheater for boys,\u201d he\u2019s creating a space for theater bros to be undone. Friedlich might be ceding the stage for someone like Jane or Jordan Slattery, someone better than the theater bro. Someone better than me.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n