Notwithstanding the lack of choc tops, THE FLICK, playing at the Seymour Centre, needs a jumbo popcorn sized buy-in from the audience. This is not a production for everyone. Written by Annie Baker, the play won the Pulitzer in 2014 and yet is it notorious for people leaving at interval.
With many very clever, very funny lines the naturalistic language reflects real-life speech rhythms, especially while distracted. An audience must make the decision to accept the glacial, but human, pace of the narrative in order to embrace the themes. I was unable to do that, nor did my companion and my friends were escapees at interval the night before. The production elements are excellent, the acting terrific, there’s lots for the movie buff, so much to appreciate. Yet …
Sam works at a cinema. A failing, unaspirational movie theatre which still uses a reel projector. He is showing the ropes to new employee, Avery as they clean the cinema that sits on the stage. Rows of tiered seats, vile carpet, centre aisle and way above …the projection room. Avery is a film lover, an escaper into celluloid and this job has all sorts of attractions for him. It may also be an antidote to the depression which is evident about him. Sam doesn’t really have a connection with the job, he exists in his parents attic, slack and unmotivated. One day though, the projectionist Rose, flighty and untrustworthy might look his way and that would be a good day.
As Sam, Jeremy Waters is highly focused. He wears his heart on his sleeve early and his sense of futility is well managed. Justin Amankwah, has chosen a difficult stage debut in playing Avery. He appears more downtrodden than depressed but Avery’s inability to cope with even the simplest physical task is telling. He handles well the scene where four words explain the cause of his self-imposed retreat and isolationism. A heartbreaking few seconds which is easily missed if one is not tuned in. Mia Lethbridge gives us a perky and somewhat vacant Rose. She is pretty unrepentant until repentance is required and she can dance up a storm.
There is, enjoyably, energy to spare in this cast. Not just the amount of pelting upstairs to the projection room that goes on but in the way that the three never lose presence. As directed by Craig Baldwin, there are huge moments between lines when they are absorbed in cleaning or thinking but there is never a drop in the connection between them. Nor overacting in their muteness. Physically, there’s a uniformity to their placement on the set which, along with the choreography and musical timing of the sweeping, binds Sam and Avery together. This is disrupted and given variety by Rose who is free to go wherever she likes and to take the men with her.
The set has some plush seating that looks comfortable if not really worn. The carpet is pure picture- palace circa 1980s and the evident attempt to spruce up the place with garish pink and purple carpet wall tiles is a nice touch. The lighting really adds to the general verisimilitude with much of the show performed under 4 fluorescent tubes. There is effective use of the wall sconces for cinema darkeness and was I only one who got the digital lighting joke of the stair state? The audio rips through genres as we hear snippets from Barrabbasy Ben Hurish epic through French New Wave to Irish inspired Titanticness. And the many speakers around the set add to the ambiance. (Set design: Hugh O’Connor. Lighting design: Martin Kinnane. Sound Composition & Design: Nate Edmondson)
In essence, THE FLICK is slow but never boring, lengthy but not over-narrative and robustly non-theatrical. It has been compared to films that have expanses of stillness and quiet but I really longed for the cutaway or slow pull-in that cinema has in its arsenal. I can’t say I opted out, the production is too professional for that, but like Sam when Avery raves on about the sanctity of celluloid, I don’t really get it.
THE FLICK , Outhouse Theatre Co [Facebook] and Seymour Centre [Facebook], plays until April 21.