Hyde Park Theatre's artistic director Ken Webster has been a fan of playwright Annie Baker for many years; since 2010, he's staged three of her works at Hyde Park. This summer, he's tackling a fourth: the Pulitzer Prizer winning The Flick.
The play fits the Hyde Park mold well. It's got a small cast, primarily focusing on three characters. It's a pretty recent work, having won that Pulitzer in 2014. And it walks the narrow path between funny and sad, which is a path that Webster and the crew at Hyde Park are adept at walking.
Webster says The Flick is more about the characters themselves than about an intricate plot. "There's a couple of major plot points, but it's kind of just a slice of life."
Shanon Weaver plays Sam, who at 35 is the veteran of the group. "Sam, just like everybody in the play, is just a human being... living the life [he's] been given," Weaver says, "which is I think where Annie Baker's strong suit as a writer is."
As Rose, the theater's projectionist, Katie Kohler says she's worked to bring out some of her worst qualities to create the character. "She's the most secure insecure person ever," says Kohler. "She's all talk. She's all show."
The Flick is set just a few years ago at a rundown arthouse movie theater, and much of the action takes place in and between the seats and aisles as the workers clean the theater between screenings. To create that set, they've simply reversed the usual order of things at Hyde Park. "Our playing space for The Flick is going to be the audience for the Hyde Park Theatre and we've created seating on the stage," Webster says. "Our audience kind of looks like a rundown arthouse movie theater."
The Flick runs through August 6 at Hyde Park Theatre.
https://vimeo.com/173393755">"THE FLICK" at Hyde Park Theatre from https://vimeo.com/icpictures">Eric Graham on Vimeo.
