The Flick (TCG Edition)

Baker won the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for this play, the latest in the series of extraordinarily affecting plays she has written. She’s a talent of the first water.The Flick takes place in a past its prime movie theater, one of only eight left in the state of Massachusetts that still shows movies in celluloid. The play is about the three young to early middle-aged people who work there. It’s scut work –take tickets, serve popcorn and soda, clean up after the show. One of them --Rose, Caucasian, 24, baggy clothes, hair dyed green, who if she isn’t lesbian is doing an excellent job of looking like she is-- runs the projection. Sam, Caucasian and 35, is obviously working class. He’s had no college or his hopes peak with the job: ushering in a third-rate, close to failing cinema. Avery is 20, African-American, on break from college. In other words, he has a future beyond this cinema, which neither Rose nor Sam do. Avery also has issues: they surface in his interactions with Sam and Rose. Avery’s a movie buff: he likes celluloid only, no digital. Digital is dead; celluloid lives. The play unfolds in a succession of encounters, mundane on the surface, among these three workers, as they share their hopes, figure out how they feel about each other. Without pounding it to death, Baker conveys through their semi-articulate, tangential dialogue the frustrations of their jobs and lives. Their lives don’t get better in the duration of this play, they get worse, but somehow you feel hopeful (a bit, not a lot) about them. Maybe it’s just that they are so human.The play is set in a movie theater: the audience is looking at the seats, window of the projection booth, exit doors. Much of the time a movie is playing but the audience doesn’t see it because it’s “playing” behind their heads, which is where the imagined movie screen is. It makes for nice effects: a drama unfolding in front of the spectators while a movie soundtrack, framing music for a different drama, goes on behind them. Sometimes the soundtrack reinforces the emotions on display on stage. Other times, it runs in ironic counterpoint to it.In every respect –dramatic arc, characterization, mood, visual impact—this play is lovely.

I adore this play and Annie Baker's writing. Her ability to explore the unsaid, the silences, the things we keep from other and from ourselves, our inability to communicate, is stunning and heart-wrenching. All of the characters are fascinating and real and poignant and torn. I'm currently exploring one of the penultimate scenes in a directing class in my MFA program, and it is a minefield of the subtleties of human communication. It's deceptively simple, and wonderfully complex. A highly recommended read.

Don't get me wrong, it is a good play. Funny at times, dramatic at times. Some solid interesting scenes for acting classes, but I could not determine what this play won the Pulitzer for. I also recently read John by Annie Baker and found it to much more of an interesting piece that provoked more conversation.

Funny, touching and full of character. Definitely will read more from this playwright.

This play was very entertaining. I loved how real the characters were. Many times I felt like I was sitting there, watching them interact as opposed to reading their dialogue. As a side note there was some profanity and a few sexual things so if you don't like that kind of thing you might not enjoy the play. It fit with the characters so it wasn't distracting. I would love to see this performed.

A great, short read. If you're young, have ever worked a dead-end job, feel like you're not sure which direction to move in, or just like movies and the theater-going experience; this is a very relatable play. Couldn't recommend it enough. I heard about it through Louis CK when he went on Mac Maron's podcast a few months ago.

Ordered this quickly when i could not attend a production of this play locally. (Thank you Western NY Snow Storms!) but did not realize that it was a script, not a novel or essay. Enjoyed the concept of diverse personalities brought together as employees of a little movie theater. Still would like to see it performed where it will probably make more sense.

I entirely understand why this piece was so polarizing in its reception on stage at Playwrights Horizons. The long spaces of "nothing" are easy to clock intellectually while you read it, but I can imagine that sitting through it in real time is quite a different matter. The play accomplishes everything it sets out to accomplish on the page, and its beauty is in its subtlety and understatement.

Awesome play.

本年10月に新国立劇場で本作品の上演（マキノノゾミ演出）があるとのことで，事前に戯曲を読んでおこうとしたのですが，本作品は2013年初演で，邦訳があるはずもなく，原文を読んでみました．　本書は177ページあるのですが，そのほとんどは数行のせりふのやりとりですので，文章の量はその3分の1くらいでしょう．英語自体はスラングや特殊な若者言葉などはほとんど使われておらず，そんなに苦労せずに読むことができますが，気になったのは“like”が多用されていることです（1行に数回使われている場合もあります）．これは“sort of”のような感じで，間をとるためや，断定的な物言いを避けるために使われているようですが，慣れればどうということはありません．　舞台は米国Massachusetts州のまだフィルムで映画を上映している古ぼけた映画館“The Flick”で，会話に出てくる映画の話から2012年のことと推定されます．主な登場人物は，映画館の床掃除などの下働きをしていて，まだ両親と一緒に住んでいる35歳のSam（Caucasian），父親が教員をしている大学を休学してSamと同じ仕事をしているフィルム映画オタクの20歳のAvery（African-American），映写技師で大学ローンの支払いに苦労しているコケティッシュな魅力のある24歳のRose（Caucasian）の3人です．　この映画館も時代の流れには抗えず，ディジタル化されることになり，そこから物語が動き始めます．“Dinner Money”（チケットの二度売りをして従業員用にプールしてあるお金）がマネージャーに見つかり，その責任をとって生活に困っていないAveryが辞めることになるのですが，辞めた後にSamが映画館にあった昔の映画フィルムのリールを盗み出してきてAveryに渡したり，SamのRoseに対するひそかな想いがかないそうな暗示があったりと，何となくほのぼのとした味わいの結末になっていて，そのあたりが本作品がピュリッツァー賞を受賞した理由の一つなのかもしれません．　本作品には映画の題名や俳優の名前がたくさん出てきて，私の知っているのはその5分の1もなかったのですが，映画通の方であれば，そのコメントから登場人物の嗜好もある程度わかるのではないかと思います．

genius

Sadly too old fashioned in its presentation and writing.