The Flick: a love letter to the big screen and intimate theatre
11 Oct 2019

by Drew Rowsome - Photos by Dahlia Katz

In 2012, a new worker joins the crew at The Flick, one of the few movie theatres remaining with 35mm projection capabilities. Sam who has been on the job for months, teaches Avery the ropes of cleaning between screenings, mopping after, and dispenses advice on working the box office and the popcorn counter. Rose has risen through the ranks to become the projectionist. The interactions between the three are punctuated by blackouts, except for the beam of light that is the film being projected onto the screen which is ostensibly just above the audience, accompanied by scores from classic films. 

The warning to turn off our cell phones is delivered by Alfred Hitchcock, and the copious film references continue throughout. It is a movie nerd's fantasy with trivia, quotes and riffs extending far beyond the sonic commentary and the MGM lion's roar. All three are film buffs but Avery is a savant, he aces, hilariously, several games of six degrees of separation. The three banter, lament their fate, and form an awkward love triangle. But of course the world is going digital and that is one of the main themes of The Flick : what happens when the communal experience of gathering before a big screen is reduced to peering solo at a cell phone?

Avery, played seamlessly by Durae McFarlane, is devoted to classic cinema but has a guilty pleasure secret. He also appears to be on the autism spectrum and McFarlane navigates a very difficult role, playing literal and emotionally blank - a self-described "weird, depressed guy" - while also fully engaging our empathy. He also articulates another theme: how much of our interactions and our personalities are learned from or based on a film scene? And what happens when the only scenes we are familiar with are not classic films, but rather loud, crass action films?

Colin Doyle (Mr Burns, A Post-Electric Play) plays Sam as a lovable loser who has learned much from b-movies. He takes his job seriously but feigns nonchalance. He struggles through a crucial story about smuggling tamales into a theatre and swears it was better in his mind. He just has trouble expressing what is going in his psyche. And when he does, it is borderline disastrous. Sam also shows Avery a Facebook video in a scene that is thematically central, hilarious and heartbreaking. 

The projectionist Rose, the spunky and fearless Amy Keating (Hand to God, Mr Burns, A Post-Electric Play), is all bravado and sass with a soft and frightened centre. And she cuts loose in a mean dance number featuring a Flashdance homage that brings down the house. The three navigate their shifting relationships all within the context of playwright Annie Baker's central concerns, remaining individual characters we care about while also being highly metaphoric.

The script is riveting, tightly constructed, only revealing its schematic quality in hindsight. The naturalistic performances are only hampered by a plethora of pauses - undoubtedly designed to enhance the naturalism - that are on occasion long enough for Harold Pinter to drive a truck through. Director Mitchel Cushman (Hand to God, Dr Silver: A Celebration of Life, Mr Burns, A Post-Electric Play) creates a reality, but theatre also involves pacing. At three and a half hours, The Flick often resembles the classic films that Avery admires, Barry Lyndon is one he mentions, where much was said with a look, time was spent in contemplation, and scenes played out in an imitation of real time. 

Being an Outside the March production, The Flick's environment is crucial. The theatre has been reconfigured to resemble an aging movie palace with raked seating as a stage, climbing to a projection booth. All that is missing is the sticky patches of dried soda on the floor and the scent of popcorn and dust. Kudos must be given here to stage manager Kate Sandeson who manages, somehow, to scatter kernels and props during the blackouts. The inverse of Tim Allgood. And here The Flick achieves conceptual brilliance. Theatre, a communal experience, cannot be reduced to digital, and while The Flick would make a great flick (McFarlane would kill with the advantage of close-ups), it breathes in its theatrical structure. . 

As well as our nostalgia for the days of the big screen - there was a collective sigh when the score from Casablanca filled the theatre - The Flick reminds us how a play about ordinary people living ordinary, usually unexamined, lives can reveal truths about our collective humanity. And the power of sitting in the dark with our fellow humans for an experience that moves us.