'The Flick' goes off-stage and out of earshot
The play runs through Saturday (Feb. 21) at Independent Picture House, 4237 Raleigh St.
This review by longtime Charlotte arts critic Lawrence Toppman was published by The Charlotte Ledger on February 16, 2026. You can find out more about The Charlotte Ledger’s commitment to smart local news and information and sign up for our newsletter for free here. Ledger subscribers can add the Toppman on the Arts newsletter on their “My Account” page.
Review: Theatre Charlotte’s ambitious staging of Pulitzer-winning ‘The Flick’ undermines its quiet power with poor sightlines, muddled sound and a runtime that tests audience patience
by Lawrence Toppman
I can’t tell you whether I think the mixture of comedy and drama in “The Flick” works well. I stayed to the elongated end of its three hours and five minutes — unlike half the audience, who left before or during intermission — but was able to see perhaps two-thirds of what went on and hear far less.
Annie Baker’s play takes place in the last theater in Worcester County, Mass., to project movies in 35 mm after other cinemas have gone digital. So Theatre Charlotte had what seemed like a clever idea in pre-production: Put the audience onstage and let actors move among the seats, as if working in a real movie theater. The tech booth at the back of the building could become a projection booth in the show.
This proved disastrous if you sat behind the first or second row onstage. Actors without body microphones spoke in normal voices while clanking dustpans and brooms far from us. They sat down in front for long periods, making themselves invisible and inaudible from time to time. I’d hear a snatch of dialogue that made me sit up, such as one guy confessing to suicidal impulses, then miss the next part of his mumbled speech.
I had the impression Baker found loose inspiration in Kevin Smith’s 1994 film “Clerks.” Three mildly disgruntled employees gab about movies, their feelings toward each other, their dislike of the boss — from whom they steal, calling their take “dinner money” — and the sad decline of the art form, as it goes from film to pixels.
Avery (John Felipe) has just come on board with a wide knowledge of cinema and a deep love for it. Easygoing Sam (Aedan Coughlin) does menial jobs competently and quietly, though without much interest in film. He’s both attracted to and envious of projectionist Rose (Destiney Wolfe), who snagged the job Sam hoped to have and scarcely notices him. She’s either giddily promiscuous or has the hots for Avery — I missed some dialogue there — to the point of trying to seduce him during “The Wild Bunch.” (The bizarreness of that boggles the mind.)
Voters who gave this play the 2014 Pulitzer Prize probably appreciated the honest depiction of the casual and sometimes tedious conversations people have every day, the exploration of quiet despair that affects Avery and Sam in different ways, the frustration of doing a job you’re too smart for or one you’re just smart enough to do, knowing you’ll rise no higher.
Yet these ideas play out slowly, at length that seems excruciating when you can’t take them in properly. Director Kyle J. Britt does his actors no favors with placement; did he not sit onstage in rehearsal and realize they’re not projecting vocally? Was he not blinded by the bright “projection booth” light aimed directly into the audience’s eyes?
The illusion of reality isn’t helped when Coughlin’s the only person to try a New England accent, and Felipe can’t pronounce the name of their county. (It’s WOOS-ter –— maybe WOOS-tah, if you like — but not WORST-er.) Nor does Baker explain why new theater owners keep a projectionist on staff, apparently not employed at anything else, once the projection system is dismantled.
The second weekend of this run will take place in a genuine movie theater, the Independent Picture House. Perhaps crowds there will be able to see and hear everything and have a different experience of the play. But it won’t be any shorter or move any faster, so I’m not tempted to find out.
If You’re Going
“The Flick” runs at the Independent Picture House, 4237 Raleigh St., Feb. 19-21, at 7:30 p.m. Thursday-Friday and 2 and 7:30 p.m. Saturday. Last week, the play was held at Theatre Charlotte, 501 Queens Rd.
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Lawrence Toppman covered the arts for 40 years at The Charlotte Observer before retiring in 2020. Now, he’s back in the critic’s chair for the Charlotte Ledger — look for his reviews several times each month in the Charlotte Ledger.
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