Theatrical productions tend to be, well, theatrical, every movement and gesture rehearsed and choreographed, over and over again. There is little room for the ambivalence or nuance of natural interaction. Annie Baker’s “The Flick,” which won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 2014 and is currently being remounted at the Barrow Street Theatre, revels in countering this tradition. The play is saturated with long, contemplative silences, its dialogue imbued with the uncomfortableness of real life exchanges, of personal connection masquerading as small talk.With the same director (Sam Gold) and cast as the original production at Playwrights Horizons — many of whose subscribers famously threatened to cancel over the three-hour running time — “The Flick” is an intimate portrait of three employees at one of the last theaters in Massachusetts to show movies on celluloid. The play opens with Sam (Matthew Maher) initiating Avery (Aaron Clifton Moten) into the niceties of cleaning up the theater after a screening. As Sam demonstrates the correct way to sweep up popcorn and explains what to do if somebody is asleep in a seat, he is simultaneously sizing the new employee up: What is this guy about? Why does he want to work in this dump? Behind his words is a subtle assertion of power, with Sam putting himself forward as teacher to Avery’s student in the art low-level employment. Although they both perform essentially the same job, there is a hierarchy. Avery needs to know that he is at the bottom and must play along to move forward.Inserted into this dynamic is the projectionist, Rose (Louisa Krause). She first appears only as a face in the small window of the projection booth, located above the heads of the other two actors. This is a simple yet effective element of stage design that places her as the apex of a triangle formed with Sam and Avery, for both of whom she is an object of desire, if for different reasons. When Rose finally emerges — and her entrances are key, as she splashes onto the stage from the back door of the movie theater, hair streaked with green, aloof, always interrupting something — the different pieces of the intricate puzzle between these characters begin to fall into place.Or perhaps chess is a fitter metaphor. “The Flick” moves forward slowly and deliberately, and the full effect of what’s happening is felt, but not understood, until it’s all over. A subtle change of lightning toward the end is both sudden and heartbreaking. The entire thing comes crashing down, as the movie projector in the booth on stage shoots images over the audience, bathing them in color and light.
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