Annie Baker’s The Flick at Playwrights Horizons mourns the demise of the film in the age of digital cinema. It is a play that is notably spare and sordid but striking. It features three main characters, all vapid losers: Rose, who operates the projector, and Sam and Avery, who sweep the floor after each show, in a second-run movie house. Little happens in action but what happens in their relationship realized in spare dialogues develops distinct characters, shaped slowly and deliberately by Sam Gold, who directed the play. Their stark life with little hope projects (to put in a pun) the imminent end of the 35mm projection, the real film, giving way to digital projection. In contrast to The Wild Bride at St. Ann’s Warehouse, a production of the formidable Kneehigh, a spectacle of multi-talented performers, which might be likened to a richly layered embroidery, this is almost a plain muslin, or to change the metaphor, as sashimi is to boeuf bourguignon. It is nevertheless a powerful theater that leaves a lasting memory for contemplation.
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