But for the no less horrendous After the Rain, Shem Bitterman’s The Job would go unchallenged as the worst production of the lousiest play this – or perhaps any – season. It concerns a repellent loser who gets a job offing someone who thinks he wants to die, and his relations with his ghastly woman, the slimy fellow who engages him, the crazed preacher to whom he delegates the unsavory assignment, and the dismal victim-to-be. The Job requires the patience of Job to sit through – an ordeal compared to which The Lower Depths would seem the height of glamorous well-being.
As directed by the author, this fiasco comes up with a disgusting set (mostly beat-up boxes in early-Salvation Army style), and no-less-depressing costumes and their wearers, as they rant or whine away. I wonder how many bitter men and women Bitterman’s little abortion will beget in the audience.