On Friday, Grey Matter opened at The Marsh in San Francisco. A new work by Julie Katz, Grey Matter is an hour-long monologue on the alienation suffered in large international companies. And although it claims itself as a commentary on the IT industry in particular, the foibles it reveals are present in almost any large American corporation. The greatest shortcoming of those companies seems to be the enduring question of how to make work, specifically a job working to support someone else’s “mission,” meaningful. Because, finally, who wants just to work. Just to lose hours, days, months and years of one’s precious irretrievable life to the necessity of making money.
It’s an old Marxian complaint. One fostered by the cruelties of the Industrial revolution. The alienation remains the same, even when transformed in these technological days by the unrelenting competition of the corporate computer industry. Plus ça change …
Katz pursues the topic by taking on the roles of individuals in an anonymously named Company. There is the presenter, with her unreadable and incomprehensible charts, the office organizer with her lists of reminders for the Company meeting, the IT guy with his indifferent “Have you tried rebooting” delivered while he does curls with hand dumbbells, the chip-on-the-shoulder guy from Legal who’s too cool for school, the earnest and desperate Sarah from Payroll, the job interviewee with the ego as large as South America and a host of minor parts from various departments in the Company.
We follow these individuals through their lives at the Company. From hiring to firing. In the short interwoven portrayals we also get a sense of life at the company, with its uncertain rumors about a certain email. The intimations slowly become a reality: the Company is downsizing. Thirteen hundred employees will be laid off. Among them our several protagonists.
Threads of discussion wind through the roles. For instance, the artisanal chocolate dispenser (this has got to be the Bay Area!). Among the office organizer’s notes is the moving of the artisanal chocolate dispenser from the 40th floor to the fourth floor. Several roles and discussions later, Marketing (who else?) complains, along with their rational explanation for why the artisanal chocolate dispenser should be right next door to their offices. Later on down the line, Financial complains, along with their rational explanation why the artisanal chocolate dispenser should be right next door to their offices. Etc.
It’s all very cleverly done. Ironic, stereotypical but, finally, poignant, as the various characters realize that they are no longer employed and reminisce on their connections to the Company, and what their lives there meant. If anything. Because as one character points out there really isn’t much gratification in just working.
One thing missed in discussions of alienation is that connection is often made between people even in the most alienating of work situations. This is voiced most clearly by the office organizer who, in her final words before leaving her job and the Company, confesses that she will miss everyone, that they have become a kind of family, even though she was irritated by everyone of them every moment of every day.
Too true.
Grey Matter was written and performed by Julie Katz, developed with David Ford and sleekly directed by Lexi Diamond. It continues through June 4 at The Marsh in San Francisco. For tickets and informations, visit http://themarsh.org/grey_matter/julie-katz/.
– Jaime Robles
Photo: Julie Katz in Grey Matter at The Marsh. Photo by Serena Morelli.