Annie
Baker’s masterful play The Flick is based on a very simple plotline:
the lives of three menial laborers. They work in a rundown movie theatre in Massachusetts
that is still showing films using the old reels and projector. The play is set
in the rows of seats of the theatre with the projection room above. I need
hardly add that the simplicity is deceptive.
Two
of the workers, Sam and Avery, sweep under the seats and mop the floor of the
theatre and we see them doing that almost throughout the three plus hours of
the performance. The third worker, Rose, is a notch above them because she has
been promoted to projectionist. There is a fourth character but his role is
relatively minor.
Colin Doyle, Durae McFarlane and Amy Keating. Photo: Dahlia Katz
From
this unpromising scenario Baker has crafted a superb play that won the Pulitzer
Prize for Drama in 2014. Director Mitchell Cushman has produced a delicate,
subtle, sensitive, captivating and moving production that amounts to simply
outstanding theatre.
The
three workers are slowly, deliberately and with great acuity revealed as
complex, troubled and deeply human beings who have difficulty establishing
meaningful relations with other people.
Rose
is a woman in search of a relationship or some human contact at least. She has
resorted to astrology and reads details about the relationships of people based
on their zodiac sign. She goes into short, promiscuous affairs and leads a
lonely life. Amy Keating’s performance as Rose is stellar. She appears jaunty
with a devil-may-care attitude and loose clothes but reveals her inner void and
search for contact. Her attempt at sexual contact with Avery is a disaster and
her attempt to reach Sam is just as awful in a thoroughly dramatic scene where
she yells at him to just get him to turn and look at her.
Colin
Doyle gives a nuanced, sensitive and intuitive performance as Sam. He encapsulates
his life when asked by Avery, the college student, what he wants to do when he
grows up. Sam answers that he is grown up. The line garners a laugh (there is a
lot of laughter during the performance) but the reality is that Sam has reached
the apogee of his career and he can’t even be promoted to projectionist, a job
that is about to disappear in any event.
Amy Keating and Durae McFarlane. Photo: Dahlia Katz
Avery
is perhaps the most complex character in the play and here we have a
performance sans pareil by Durae McFarlane. He presents Avery as a slender,
awkward, deferential and painfully shy man. But he is very intelligent and a
movie aficionado without equal. McFarlane’s portrayal from every body movement,
to facial expression to vocal intonation represents the deeply troubled young
man. Avery is depressed to the point of attempting suicide and is unable to
trust anyone. Worse than that he seems to exist only as a movie buff who uses
his knowledge of film as a faux shield against reality. A superb performance by
McFarlane.
Movies
form the backdrop and are an essential part of the play. Sam and Avery play games
testing their knowledge of moves. We hear numerous soundtracks in the outstanding
audio system of Crow’s Theatre.
The
set and lighting by Nick Blais are impressive. The set consists of about half a
dozen rows of theatre seats facing the audience and behind them is the unseen
screen on which movies are shown.
The
Flick is a
subtle, richly-textured play that gives detailed portrayals of its characters.
The atmosphere of being at the movies is created by the physical décor, the
music and lighting with superb success.
Director
Cushman shows his ability to pay attention to the smallest detail and the
slightest nuance in his handling of the cast and the result is an outstanding night
at the theatre.
________________
The Flick by Annie Baker in a production by
Outside the March and Crow’s Theatre continues until November 2, 2019 at the
Streetcar Crowsnest Theatre, 345 Carlaw Avenue, Toronto, Ontario M4M 2T1. http://crowstheatre.com/
http://outsidethemarch.ca/
James Karas is the Senior Editor - Culture of The Greek Press.
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