The Flick
by Annie Baker
directed by Sam Gold
Barrow Street Theatre
June 18, 2015
Production website     💉💉💉💉💉 out of 5.

I will never leave my too-buttered popcorn and giant soda in my movie theatre seat again!  Set in a movie theatre in New England The Flick focuses on 3 barely paid workers trying to keep the movies playing (although no one seems to be attending) and the floor free from trash.  They interact and collide with each other and basically get to know each other.  BUT what makes this experience so rare is that they are getting to know each other at the very same speed that we are!  This doesn’t happen quickly.

The Flick has received a lot of flack from the press and most especially from audience members who think the 3+ hours of this play – – a good deal played in utter silence – – is just too much to take.  I so disagree with this!  That first pause or two that lasts what even Pinter would call a long long time, I too began to find myself drifting and wondering what the hell is happening.  Why are we watching two characters stare at door after the third character exits for such a long time with nothing but the view of the back of two heads to watch?   Then it hit me – – I am so afraid of extended silence on stage.  Why must characters always be talking and moving?  Why can’t we just be present with them.  Why can’t we treat some moments like a painting in art gallery when we are more than comfortable to just sit on a bench and “breath in” the painting?
Dead serious Naturalism such as we see in The Flick must be respected!  Realism and all of its clever selectivity would not serve these characters or their world.  They don’t think fast.  Their world lacks clever things to say.  They are to clean the floors of the movie theatre and nothing else.
But with them we can see so much.  Those silences invite us to step on stage with them in anticipation of a movie that is never going to play.  We take the very small tidbits of their life that they are capable of sharing and piece together a human being.  We must construct a complete man and his world from hearing one sentence simple sentence he shares on a phone call, “Sometimes you got to accept that you are that weird depressed guy.”
I hated this play and then I simply loved it.  It called me to be more present then any other play I have seen in a long time.  In theatre, like life, words lie – – – but silence can never be anything but the truth.