Tall Tales: “The Flick” at Curious Theatre Company

07 Sep Tall Tales: “The Flick” at Curious Theatre Company

Winner of 2014 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, “The Flick,” runs through October 17 at Denver’s Curious Theatre Company. Tickets here.

The latest book in the award-winning Allison Coil Mystery Series by our theatre critic/author Mark Stevens is “Lake of Fire.” Mark will be in town for a book signing at Between the Covers Bookstore on Friday, September 18, noon- 4 p.m.

His review of “The Flick” is below.

Christopher Hayes as Avery, John Jurcheck as Sam, and Laura Jo Trexler as Rose in “The Flick.”

One of Elmore Leonard’s oft-quoted bits of advice for writers is this: “Try to leave out that parts that readers tend to skip.”

The boring parts. 

In other words, keep it moving.

Give the reader a sense of propulsion.

Every book and every movie, perhaps with the exception of Marcel Proust and a few others, are exercises in compression. Most plays, too, with the notable exceptions of Harold Pinter, who thought deeply on the subject of communication between people.

Said Pinter: “I think that we communicate only too well, in our silence, in what is unsaid, and that takes place is a continual evasion, desperate rearguard attempts to keep ourselves to ourselves. Communication is too alarming. To enter into someone else’s life is too frightening. To disclose to others the poverty within us is too fearsome a possibility.”

I have no idea if Curious Theatre Company Producing Artistic Director Chip Walton had that quote in mind as he thought about staging “The Flick,” Annie Baker’s controversial and Pulitzer Prize-winning piece of theater.

But that might not be a bad quote to keep in mind if you decide to go see this challenging and unusual night of theatre.

My job in this case can be reduced to a consumer alert: it’s long.

And slow.

To me, 195 minutes (by my clock) isn’t necessarily a marathon for sitting and absorbing. It’s hardly a Herculean feat to do so. But it’s the ratio of dialogue to forward movement that pokes your patience button and gives “The Flick” its slow-grind qualities.

“The Flick” is ripe with long, quiet, not-much happening moments and that includes the beginning, as a movie finishes and we hear the film’s soundtrack run for several minutes (how long will this go on?) and, after a moment of quiet, we observe as two movie theater ushers begin the tedious work of sweeping popcorn and trash from the floor.

“The Flick” relishes these awkward bits. I felt awkward watching. I wanted somebody to say something. I wanted things to get rolling. But the brooms continue to clack and the dust pans get dumped with a routine thwack into the rolling trash bucket. You will become quite familiar with the sound and rhythm of a broom handle whacking against a long-handled dust pan as the rows of movie seats get cleaned and cleaned again and as the play shifts ever-so-slowly into gear. Later, it’s mops and water so the rhythms shift to dunk, squeeze, splash, dribble, mop and dunk again.

In case it’s not yet clear, the “action” takes time to brew.

Is this realism? Is this art? Do longer pauses make this seem more genuine, somehow? Will audiences stop squirming at some point and settle into this vision of theatre? My answer is this: I did not leave at intermission. I wanted to find out what would happen to these three characters and their tight little world of ordinary concerns—love and lust, job promotion, corporate takeovers, conspiracy, and guilt. I readily concede a bias for efficient storytelling, but agree that Baker’s questions are worth asking (ahem, note the Pulitzer Prize now attached to this work).

Should you go? I’ll offer four reasons, but only if you agree to caffeine up before taking your seat:

1. To savor another knock-out Curious Theatre set (Markas Henry, Richard Devin, Jason Ducat). I grew up in Massachusetts and this mini-theatre took me back to the slightly worn and dim independent theaters in Maynard and Lexington, not too far from where this play is set.

2. To enjoy superb acting—Christopher Hayes as the naïve film buff and newby Avery, John Jurcheck as the overlooked and underappreciated Sam, and Laura Jo Trexler as Rose, the projectionist with the blue-green hair and special role up in the booth. Their interplay is terrific. Their affection from cinema, particularly Avery’s sharp knowledge of movie history, make for some delicious dialogue around the themes of performance, acting, identity, role-playing and pretention.

3. To play movie trivia and relish in film banter. There are fifty movies mentioned in “The Flick” including “Barry Lyndon” (not a coincidence, I would think) to “Fanny and Alexander,” which is jokingly referred to as a play about not much (if I heard the line correctly).

4. To see what you think of an unusual approach to staging a story and find out whether you will squirm and sneak peeks at the time or sink into Annie Baker’s version of staged “reality.” At the core of “The Flick” is a pretty cool little story about these characters; is it possible to request a viewer’s cut? It could run about 120 minutes, I do believe, even with an intermission in the exact same spot.

“The Flick” (through Oct. 17) is memorable, not necessarily for the right reasons, and curious indeed.

Mark Stevens, courtesy Cyrus McCrimmon

Editor’s note: Telluride Inside… and Out’s monthly (more or less) column, Tall Tales, is so named because contributor Mark Stevens is one long drink of water. He is also long on talent. Mark was raised in Massachusetts. He’s been a Coloradoan since 1980. He’s worked as a print reporter, national news television producer, and school district communicator. Mark is the author of the Allison Coil Mystery Series—Antler Dust (2007), Buried by the Roan (2011), Trapline (2014) and Lake of Fire (due out in September, 2015). The series is set in the Flat Tops Wilderness in Western Colorado. Trapline won the 2015 Colorado Book Award for best mystery and the 2015 Colorado Author League award for best genre fiction. Mark Stevens’ new Alison Coil mystery, “Lake of Fire,” was recently published.