Frantic Job is exhausting

Job: The Hip Hop Musical burnt up the Fringe circuit this summer but flared out at Winnipeg.

Along the way to this Azimuth Theatre presentation, it jettisoned one of its writers (Eli Batalion) and added local performer Jon Paterson (Be a Man). Paterson is awesome, but then so is the original co-writer/performer of the piece, Jerome Saibil.

At times you wonder how human synapses can fire that fast and the high-energy duo work together as if, at one time, they had been joined at the hip. They perform on a simple set with a couple of towels and some bottles of water - wearing tracksuits and dew rags.

The two are "bros'' - M.C. Abel and M.C. Cain and they tell us the Biblical allegory of the blameless (but self-righteous) Job. His well-ordered life is thrown into chaos when the devil (here known as Louis Saphire - say it fast and you'll get it), persuades the head of Hoover Records, Jonathan Hoover, that Job (or Job Lowe - say it fast and it comes out Joe Blow) is just in it for the perks. Take them away, sez VP Saphire, and Job will show he has no real belief in the company. "He tried to be dutiful and it was beautiful,'' rhymes the big boss, but he goes along with the test.

I'm not sure setting the work in a big New York record company has the theological resonance of the biblical tale (can loyalty to your company be equated with love and faith for your Creator?) but the old tale does provide a useful platform for a challenging theatrical endeavour.

The musical is presented as a hip-hop concept album with different cuts, pauses for small dramas and the occasional argument about the finer points of the story (or rhyming) between the two brothers, who apparently have been squabbling since they were kids at home with mom and dad (ahem, biblical scholars among us will remember they were M.C. Adam and M.C. Eve).

Paterson and Saibil are the hardest-working actors in Edmonton, playing all the roles at a blistering pace - sometimes fluidly switching characters with each other in mid-rhyme.

And rhyme they do. The hour (and change) is relentless and demands considerable attention. The work is constantly clever and rich with allusion but it all comes at you with such bewildering speed that you have to be constantly on top of it. Kant, Plato, Mozart, Malthus, the Beatles, Cecil B. deMille, Ozzy and many others are sampled for their moment.

Despite changes of pace, an hour is a long time for such an unrelenting torrent of words and ideas - and hip hop, as practised by these two performers, may be quite elastic, but after a while there is a numbing sameness to it all.

You come away entertained by two intense and highly focused players and a work that is consistently imaginative. But it is an exhausting experience.

— Colin MacLean