Sumner Theatre, Melbourne
June 21, 2018

Hot young American playwright Branden Jacobs-Jenkins looks at the rich and familiar comic vein that is office politics in off-Broadway hit, Gloria. He pokes, scratches and ultimately slices it right open, simultaneously applying his razor-sharp wit to the media industry in this satire mostly set in the Manhattan office of a prestigious magazine (which Jacobs-Jenkins has said is definitely not The New Yorker, where he worked  for three years). Directed with perfect pacing and an emphasis on character by Lee Lewis, the Artistic Director of Griffin Theatre Company, this Melbourne Theatre Company production will make audience members who work in an office, especially in the media, laugh uncomfortably.

Jane Harber, Aileen Huynh and Callan Colley in Gloria. Photograph © Brett Boardman

Gloria opens on three young, entitled editorial assistants, who are driven by the desire for a byline and ultimately their bosses’ jobs. The office hierarchy is underlined by the way they treat the intern, and mock the title character, a misfit who has worked at the magazine for years, and whose party nearly everyone didn’t attend. The sharp, inventive comedy of their scheming and complaining is sidelined, almost permanently,...