by Dan Venning
**
Isaac’s Eye. By Lucas Hnath. Directed by Linsay Firman. At the Ensemble Studio Theatre. 6 March 2013.
The Flick. By Annie Baker. Directed by Sam Gold. At Playwrights Horizons. 27 March 2013.
**
I have recently seen two plays at venues devoted to presenting new work by emerging playwrights. At The Ensemble Studio Theatre (EST), a member company founded in 1968 and, according to its mission statement, “committed to the discovery and nurturing of new voices,” I saw Isaac’s Eye, written by Lucas Hnath and directed by Linsay Firman about conflicts between Isaac Newton and the scientist Robert Hooke. At Playwrights Horizons I attended Annie Baker’s The Flick, a new play directed by Sam Gold about employees of a small movie theater in current-day Massachusetts. Playwrights Horizons was founded around the same time as EST, in 1971, and according to its mission statement is dedicated to a similar goal—“the support and development of contemporary American playwrights, composers and lyricists, and to the production of their new work.”
Although differing in subject matter, the two plays had some striking similarities. Both were plays for small casts of four actors—three men and one woman—and both featured love triangles between the central male roles and the female character. Despite the historical plot of Hnath’s play, each was staged in contemporary dress. Also, both Isaac’s Eye and The Flick focus on essentially the same topic: interrelations between people of differing ages in the same field, who engage in a relationship that involves both mentoring and antagonism. The plays conveyed their messages with varying degrees of success, but ultimately both were fascinating to watch and valuable examples of new American plays by young authors.
**
At the opening of Hnath’s Isaac’s Eye, which was coproduced by EST and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation (a foundation devoted to the development of science in society), an actor (Jeff Biehl) appears to let the audience know that many of the facts depicted in the play are true. The actor sets up the rules of the game: whenever something historically accurate is said, it will be written in chalk on a blackboard upstage. For example, Isaac Newton (Haskell King) indeed believed that light was made of particles, rewrote parts of the bible, and had a friendship with Catherine Storer (Kristen Bush), the daughter of an apothecary in his hometown of Woolsthorpe. Robert Hooke (Michael Louis Serafin-Wells), the curator of experiments in the British scientific Royal Society believed light was made of waves, explained combustion, designed an artificial respirator, and explained elasticity (now called Hooke’s Law). After setting up these rules, the actor, in Brechtian fashion, announces the first scene of the play and Newton, in a black sweater looking very much like an Emo-kid in his twenties, appears.
Just as they are costumed expertly by Suzanne Chesney in contemporary clothes—Hooke, like a modern-day narcissistic professor, is dressed in a blazer, button-up shirt, and wears stylish glasses—Hnath’s characters speak in a witty, biting modern style. The crux of the play is that Newton wants to get into the Royal Society, and needs Hooke’s recommendation. Hooke, having read Newton’s papers, realizes that Newton’s ideas conflict with his own and wants to stifle this potential challenger to his research. Catharine becomes involved with both men, realizing that as she gets older her prospects for marrying and having children are steadily decreasing. Biehl also reappears as Sam, a man dying of the plague, whom Hooke and Newton subject to experiments. Newton purloins Hooke’s sex diary, a real document in which the elder scientist kept a log of all his ejaculations, as well as descriptions of an affair with his niece, Grace Hooke. Using this diary, Newton blackmails Hooke, demanding a recommendation for the Royal Society. Hooke deftly reverses the blackmail and demands that Newton conduct a proposed experiment on himself, putting a needle into his tear duct in order to bend his eye to see if colors change (demonstrating that light is indeed composed of particles). At the end of the play, the two men reach a sort of détente as Newton heads to Trinity College, Cambridge, to begin his studies.
As the actor reveals in the conclusion of the show, while many of the events depicted are “true” (recorded historical facts), others were invented. Hooke probably never really met Catharine Storer, and Newton and Hooke didn’t meet until later in Newton’s career, although they indeed had a noted rivalry. The narrator describes how these invented stories were “just a little lie to help you see something that’s difficult to see.” What that is, precisely, is a bit unclear. Perhaps it has something to do with the personal problems that can accompany genius: the human price Newton must pay in order to become a triumph as a scientist. Still, Hnath’s play, for all its crackling wit and moving interpersonal conflicts seems to lack a significant purpose. Isaac’s Eye feels somewhat unfinished. The play’s greatest success is engaging concept that allows the audience to see the past as very much like the present. Newton, as played by King, seems like he might be somewhere on the autism spectrum due to some his inability to emotionally connect with others (particularly effective is King’s way of delivering Newton’s repeated line “yaaaaaay,” a passive-aggressive, tentative line of semi-celebration). The acting was excellent all around and each scene was meticulously directed to wonderful effect by Firman, but the show, while thoroughly entertaining, ultimately felt a bit precious and left me wondering what, exactly, Hnath wanted me to see through Isaac’s Eye.
**
In The Flick, Annie Baker tells the story of Sam (Matthew Maher), Avery (Aaron Clifton Moten), and Rose (Louisa Krause), three employees of a single-screen, second-run movie theater in Massachusetts, “The Flick,” which houses one of the last non-digital, 35 millimeter projectors in the state. The thirty-something Sam and twenty-year-old Avery clean the movie theatre auditorium after each showing, while Rose runs the projector. The (real) audience watches the show as if from behind the invisible screen—we look out into a stunningly detailed set created by David Zinn (who also designed the costumes) of movie-theater seats. Scenes are separated by the flickering lights from the projector. Because the action takes place among rows of seats, director Sam Gold (a frequent collaborator of Baker’s, they worked together on Baker’s Obie award-winning Circle Mirror Transformation, Aliens, and her recent adaptation of Uncle Vanya at Soho Rep) has created blocking that is meticulously detailed as Sam and Avery sweep, have discussions about life and love, joke, and learn about one another between showings.
Maher, who plays Sam, has a harelip and slight lisp that he uses to build a character pushed to the margins of society. Sam carries a torch for Rose, an alienated and angry young woman who has poorly-dyed green hair and wears boots and shapeless black shirts that obscure her femininity. Sam mentors Avery, who is working in the movie theater during some time off from college following a failed suicide attempt. Sam quickly learns that Avery is profoundly in love with cinema, and has chosen this job specifically because of the 35 mm projector. Early in the show, Sam and Rose reveal to Avery that they embezzle 10 percent of each day’s receipts, because the unseen owner of the theater is a “total dick” and an idiot who will never notice. Avery is reluctant to participate since as a young African American he feels he may be more subject to suspicion from the (possibly racist) boss. But Sam and Rose convince Avery to participate in the “dinner money” scheme out of solidarity.
At times the pace of the three-hour-long show is unbearably slow. Sam and Avery clean for what seems like minutes without speaking, or play games of “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon” that take ages as Avery demonstrates his knowledge by connecting stars from different genres and time periods. (Along similar lines, one striking crossover between The Flick and Isaac’s Eyes, coincidental I’m sure, is that at one point Avery reveals that his middle name is Newton!) Sam, Avery, and Rose chat about work, astrology, and movies, creating a vivid and realistic depiction of coworkers in a dead-end job. Yet Sam and Avery develop a real connection: Sam tells Avery about his mentally disabled brother, while Avery shares the story of his suicide attempt. They become friends. Then two heartbreaking betrayals take place: while Sam is away at his brother’s wedding, Rose makes a play for Avery that is only stymied because Avery is more enraptured by the movie they are watching than by the woman at his side. And after The Flick is sold, the new owner figures out “dinner money” and blames Avery alone. Rose and Sam let him take the fall, saying that while they need their salaries for rent and, in Rose’s case, student loans, Avery can just return to college on his parents’ dime. His time at The Flick has just been a detour.
The final scene is one of the most painful examinations of betrayal and failed friendship to come out of the contemporary theatre scene. The old projector has been replaced by a digital one, and Sam, who now works with a new partner (Alex Hanna) invites Avery back to the theater to give Avery the old projector and some 35 mm reels that the previous owner never returned to the distributor. It is a sensitive and thoughtful peace offering, if one that cannot fully make up for Sam’s betrayal of his solidarity with Avery. Avery responds with vitriol in a vicious speech in which he says that he and Sam were never really friends, just coworkers, and that he will go on to accomplish great things after college while Sam will always remain a meaningless worker in a low-end movie theater. Sam responds to this attack with grace in a marvelously written speech about human dignity, describing the fulfillment that any person can find in daily life, or in love. It is unclear whether Sam and Rose have gotten together, but Sam finds satisfaction with his lot in life. As Avery storms off, Sam attempts to mend fences by posing one last, very difficult “Six Degrees” question. The audience waits for minutes, in silence, to see if Avery will return to solve it, or if he will leave Sam in silence. Avery comes back. While the two may no longer have a place in one another’s lives, in this final, extraordinarily moving moment, Baker allows the two to find mutual respect and a glimmer of the friendship they once had.
The Flick has received significant acclaim from critics: it was designated a Critic’s Pick by the New York Times and given glowing reviews in a variety of other publications. Baker’s play, under Gold’s expert direction and with these extraordinary actors and Zinn’s astounding set, absolutely deserves it. (I will be very surprised if Zinn does not win several awards for his design). But The Flick is not perfect, nor is it for everyone. Sam’s speech on human dignity at the end is absolutely crucial, since during the first act I frequently felt that I was watching something like facile “class tourism,” as a mostly upper-middle-class audience was given a window into the vagaries of blue-collar work. Clearly, this was intentional: we are meant to see the world of The Flick through Avery’s eyes until Sam reveals, so eloquently, a very different perspective on the world. On another note, several times I wondered if scenes could have been moved along faster, at least slightly. Baker and Gold aim for naturalistic detail, but the drawn-out pacing sometimes seemed positively sluggish and allowed dramatic tension to dissipate. Some audience members could not handle this: the middle-aged couple sitting next to me left at intermission, after joking periodically about the pace as the first act was running. While The Flick is a marvelous piece of writing, it simply would not work on Broadway, with a larger audience frequently less tolerant of plays that challenge them. In fact, Playwrights Horizons received enough feedback from some of its core audience that Artistic Director Tim Sanford sent a letter to the company’s subscribers alerting them to the length and silences. But in the end I found the challenges presented by Baker’s style led to a genuine breath of fresh air in a new play that is touching, heartfelt, and an important examination of human connection across lines of gender, education, race, and class.
**
While I ultimately felt that Baker’s The Flick was more satisfying than Hnath’s Isaac’s Eye, it is worth noting that Playwrights Horizons, on Theatre Row on 42nd Street, clearly has far more financial resources than EST, which is located in a tiny space on the second floor far west on 52nd Street. The two plays fit their individual theatres well, though: The Flick required the production values available with the resources of Playwrights Horizons, and the moving, enlightening, and slightly unfinished-seeming Isaac’s Eye seemed entirely at home in a stereotypical off-off Broadway space. EST can take bigger risks because it is a smaller, scrappier company that presents shows that are earlier in their development by playwrights earlier in their careers. Playwrights Horizons frequently produces works whose creators hope to transfer them to Broadway. Nevertheless, the two plays demonstrate that young authors and directors, even when approaching similar topics, can engage audiences by doing so in radically different ways. I expect that The Flick and perhaps also Isaac’s Eye, new plays by American voices who deserve to be heard, will soon be seen at regional theatres around the country, and I look forward to seeing Hnath’s and Baker’s next plays. (In fact, I’ve already got tickets to see Hnath’s A Public Reading of an Unproduced Screenplay About the Death of Walt Disney at Soho Rep in May.)
**
As a final note, it has been a delight to review theatre for the Advocate this academic year. From the Fringe and Into the Woods and Prelude to these new plays, from avant-garde shows at HERE and Brecht at LaMama to Einstein on the Beach to competing adaptations of Shakespeare and the Metropolitan Opera, the variety of theatrical offerings in New York remains one of the city’s greatest attractions. My favorite from this season remains Dave Malloy’s Natasha, Pierre, & the Great Comet of 1812, which is returning May 1 at “Kazino,” a replica of a Russian supper club constructed especially for the show in the Meatpacking district. I’ve already got my tickets. I would not be surprised if Natasha, Pierre… becomes a fixture of the New York theatrical scene, much like Sleep No More. While that was my top pick, most of the other shows I reviewed did not fail to entertain and frequently challenge their audiences. Of course, I missed a great deal too, since it is pretty much impossible to see everything available each season. I eagerly await next season’s offerings, and wish a productive and enjoying summer to all my readers.
