Annie Baker

I probably should have gone to see it--it was extended. But I didn't. It's perfect in that way that looks constructed when you read something but work beautifully when you see it performed, and now I've missed out. But there may still be time for you.

The inventive way in which the stage is laid out like the movie theater but facing towards the projection booth, the dialogues and relationships unfolding over time so that you feel them, . . . It's hard to say (for me, that is) what makes it so show more affective. Or is it "effective?" Both, maybe. I'd have liked to have seen Rose do her dance. It's supposed to be different every performance.

The way Avery and Sam, whose real world relationship is now over, persists in their playing the 6 degrees game, shows how the constraints of culture don't really match how people feel about each other.

And there are many lines that made me LOL (if I may use that expression.) show less

between 2.5 and 3 stars. i don't tend to like pulitzer winners all that much, but i'm trying to see this one for more than it presents as. it seems like a very simple little story about everyday people living their everyday lives. and it is that, but i think it's also more, and that there's a lot more here. this is not a play with bells and whistles and grand set designs. the biggest thing to happen in that realm is a change in lighting and that at the end the 2 characters change their shirt show more colors. it's a thinking play, not an action play. (so i am predisposed to liking it.)

it's about anxiety/depression and racism. but most importantly it's about reality vs performance/pretending. the conversations they have show this, but there's also the discussion of digital movies vs film movies, and how the film shows the real light and the real reality, whereas digital is kind of faking, like a person who says what they think they should say in a certain situation. everything comes back and comes down to this. who are we? who are you? are you performing or are you really that way? what do you really think or believe if what you're saying you think or believe is just what you think you should be saying you think or believe? how can you ever relate to or know someone if they are performing? if you are performing? what is real?

i liked this, but i think someone who is into movies would appreciate it more. i can only assume the movies and actors she mentions aren't random but have deeper meaning to them. still, i think there's a good bit for me to think about here, and i suspect i'll like it more and more the more i think about it. show less

While not my favorite Baker play, John's strengths are in the details of the relationships and when it decides to get weird it goes there.

Reading The Flick is like coming back to a place you used to live and finding the table set, wine poured, and a jazz record playing. It's comforting, surprising, and meaningful in a way that is so full of life it's too strange to be real and yet it is. ( I could see how this metaphor would be creepy, The Flick isn't.)