Duo jolts Job into 21st century

Can the victims of corporate layoffs be thought of as modern-day Jobs? According to performing partners Eli Batalion and Jerome Saibil, the threat of being downsized is a painful test for workers in the 21st century, just as Job was tested.

In their play JOB: The Hip-Hop Musical, the two update the age-old Bible story with contemporary street smarts and pop culture.

JOB runs Jan. 7 to 18 at Centaur Theatre, as part of its Wildside Festival that showcases the best of experimental new plays. It is still riding high on the cartload of awards it has won since its debut at the Montreal Fringe Festival last June.

A Best Text prize from Chapters has earned it a public reading (without the music), in advance of its Centaur run, at the downtown bookstore Jan. 5 at 6 p.m.

Saibil and Batalion say the clarity of a reading will come in handy for hip-hop neophytes not used to the rapid-fire lyrics of the genre.

"Hip-hop culture is an east coast, New York-based urban expression movement," says Batalion. "It involves rapping or rhyming to beats, breakdancing, graffiti art and deejaying or 'scratching' that involves pushing a vinyl record back and forth under a turntable needle to produce sounds."

The Montreal actors have been collaborating since high school on publicly staged theatre projects. With an instinct for what's fresh and timely, they relish turning tradition on its ear.

This is what evokes the initial chuckle, before the barrage of lyrics that Toronto critics have called "can't-stop-laughing funny" and "endlessly inventive."

A sample: "E-N-V-E-L-O-P-E, got it in the mail. Now what could it be? Letter of promotion for all of my devotion, to Hoover I'm a mover, shaker, putting things in motion..."

Sadly for Job, the Devil sits upstage, typing the very letter he's about to open and it's not the good news Job expects.

In the updated story, God is J. Hoover (slurred, the name sounds like Jehovah), the all-powerful president of a hip-hop record label. Lucifer is Lou Saphire, the company's vice-president of finance who prompts the boss to test employee Job Lowe's (read as Joe Blow's) loyalty by removing his work benefits and, eventually, his job.

The story isn't allowed to slip into the comfort zone of familiarity but engages in some philosophical and theological debate.

In addition to all the other roles, the partners play two narrators holding opposing views. MC Abel (Batalion) feels that humanity has to have blind faith and accept "what the powers-that-be deal you, since there must be a reason for it." MC Cain (Saibil) feels that the story exposes an egotistical, irritable God who toys with an innocent man, thus demonstrating that human suffering is without reason.

"Their arguments are based on real rabbinic and scholarly debates," they say, topics they studied as students at Bialik High School.

After its Fringe circuit tour, JOB was snapped up for a two-week run by Edmonton's Azimuth Theatre. Following its stint at Centaur, it goes to The Village Theatre in Hudson Feb. 21-23, then to Toronto for a return visit in late February or early March. Charleston, S.C., is on the tour schedule for May, then Orlando, Fla., and New York.

The partners are taking their celebrity in stride. They are creative dervishes. Since the age of 19 and their first Fringe play, they have presented a number of successful touring productions, including Everything You Wanted to Know About Yourself But Were Afraid to Ask Freud, which was launched at their alma mater, Brown University in Rhode Island, where they earned degrees in philosophy and psychology.

Saibil and Batalion line up all their bookings themselves. They write, direct, light and perform JOB solo, although they asked American DJ Paul Bercovitch for help with the "scratching" for the 10-tune soundtrack to which they rap.

Both 22, Saibil and Batalion look forward to branching out into film, TV and radio. These young actors will not be content to sit under their fig tree. They already have plans for a sequel to JOB.

— Heather Solomon