The Race Presents an Interview Powered by an HR-Bot, and It’s the Audience Who Makes the Call

Feb 2, 2021 by Two Sues On the Aisle

By Sue Weston and Susie Rosenbluth – Two Sues on the Aisle

Something remarkable happens when artists decide to use innovative technology to bring fresh insight to a subject. Mark Binder, a storyteller, and novelist well known in the Jewish community has done just that in his play, The Race, which represents the clever metamorphosis of theater into an interactive Zoomed simulation of reality.

Presented online by the Wilbury Theatre Group, The Race invites the audience to become part of the story, maybe the most important part, given that the climax is the decision as to which of two candidates gets a job.

The conceit of the play is that the audience has either walked in on or is part of a panel judging a job interview. Had The Race been performed in a standard or even avant-garde theater, the audience would have known just by walking in that they were in the right place. But this is a Zoom presentation, and when confronted with the screen by way of a click on a link, viewers could be forgiven for wondering if the technology has transported them to the wrong site.

“Conclusive Interview #11 will begin shortly,” viewers are told. What interview? Is this the show? Are we in the right place?

It quickly becomes clear that somewhere in cyberspace there is a Human Relations panel of a major company that will be responsible for selecting who between two potential candidates for a position will actually be hired. But sitting watching the screen, the viewer has no idea who or where that panel is. Who else is watching the interview? This is a play, so naturally, from start to finish, the audience makes judgments.

The interview is conducted by an off-camera ethereal HR-Bot with a feminine, if mechanical voice (Jennifer Mischley, who sounds frighteningly like a robo-call), and, from the minute the screen springs to life, it is evident there may have been a computer glitch. Two interviews have been scheduled for the same time, and both candidates, Joseph White and Joseph Black (Jim O’Brien and Rodney Eric López, who switch parts for every performance) are eminently qualified for the position, which, they are told, requires knowledge of sales, marketing, and management.

Not only is the HR panel and the audience watching Messrs. White and Black on Zoom, but the candidates themselves are being interviewed on the video-conferencing platform as well.

As directed by Brien Lang, The Race is every interviewee’s worst nightmare. The robotic computer, which might well have gone rogue (or may actually be following its pre-programmed operation), rambles through a series of required inappropriate questions, and no human being is able to intervene. The audience, impersonating the HR panel (or is it the other way around), listens, responds with a click of the mouse to questions posed by the bot, but is unable to assist the understandably increasingly agitated candidates.

The performances by Messrs. O’Brien and López are nothing short of brilliant. They are mirror opposites. One is the well-educated, privileged, articulate resident of a wealthy suburb; the other is an undoubtedly intelligent, self-educated-on-the-job immigrant from Jamaica, raising three children on his own in a city apartment he shares with his mother. But this is not a matter of race. At the performance we saw, the role of the suburbanite was taken by the black actor, and the white actor played the Jamaican immigrant. At other performances, the roles are reversed. The result seems to keep the dialogue and performances fresh and alive.

The two men can hear each other and try to outdo one another (to impress whom? The bot?), but they are dealing with a computer-generated voice who will not—or cannot—clarify whether it was intentional for both men to be interviewed simultaneously. In fact, often, it is impossible to know which man the bot is addressing since both share the same first name.

As the computer proceeds to make its demands on the two men, viewers inevitably must ask themselves how far they would allow themselves to go in order to get a job. The robot knows a lot about them already, presumably from forms that have been filled out, prior interviews that have been conducted, and/or Google searches that have been completed, but then she asks questions that most people would shrink from answering. How important is it for a company to know what a potential employee’s sexual fantasies are? Is the willingness to answer the question itself part of the test? Who will make that determination?

Until the very end, the mesmerized audience, unable to do anything else but click responses, has no idea what its role in the interview is if any.

Mr. Binder, who, with The Race, has made his transition to the virtual stage in a big way, dredges up emotions from both actors and viewers. It is a rollercoaster in which the bot makes the audience unwitting collaborators.

The only change we would recommend is to rename the play. This is neither an athletic event nor a test of endurance. It is a blood sport in which the only rule is that there are none.

The play will be showing on Zoom through February 7.

Tickets can be purchased at https://thewilburygroup.org/the-race.html.

Let the best man win!

*****

Two Sues on the Aisle bases its ratings on how many challahs it pays to buy (rather than make) in order to see the play, show, film, or exhibit being reviewed. (5 Challah is our highest rating)

Sue Weston gave The Race 4 challahs. Susie Rosenbluth gave it 5.