Annie Baker’s funny, poignant, thought provoking meditation on pain and longing is well worth seeing

Annie Baker’s new play Infinite Life fulfils what is becoming a tradition for this multiple-award winning playwright in having its UK debut at the National Theatre. As with her other works, Baker manages to harness the power of everyday chatter and extract existentialism, longing, frailty and especially humour. The sheer amount of laughter she manages to sew into a play about pain is alone why this play is a must see.

I fear though I’m probably speaking to a distinct few. Mention Annie Baker’s name to some and cue the eruption of adoring rapture; others have yet to see a piece, or hear the name. It’s important then to assure new audiences that Annie Baker’s work does not require prior knowledge, or to be some sort of theatre buff to be able to “get” it. The play’s themes are intensely, even awkwardly, human. Even the wellness retreat, within which this play is set, was a former motel which backs onto a car park and a bakery – tortuous when you consider the residents’ diet of… well… water.

Indeed, this is a retreat which it seems promises a quick fix to all ailments. When Yvette (Mia Katigbak) lists of the litany of health problems, ailments, fears and a few hypochondriatic worries she has, it becomes a hypnotic spiral of nonsense words. The slow drip-feeding of each characters’ sickness contains increasingly seismic revelations about who they are and the frailty that is being thrust upon unwilling minds by bodies that are either aging or simply let-down by modern science. No surprise, although very funny, is the shocked reaction of the residents to the sole male, Nelson’s entrance (a mostly shirtless and laconic Pete Simpson) – the lack of research surrounding chronic pain in women, and specifically post-menopausal women, is constantly hovering in the background – the shadow of a medical establishment which has abandoned these people into the arms of fad diets and shaky science. 

It’s in desperation that Nelson and the other residents arrive at this centre, a theme of longing which Baker weaves through the whole play, not least with Sofi (a masterful Christina Kirk), whose remembrances of her time at the centre make up the play. The confused mix of desperate, painful, detached and sexually charged scenes unify to build an image of a person clutching at straws, relying finally on Cleansing and Wellness to tackle the weight of problems surrounding her. The episodic hourly stamps which punctuate the beginning of the play give the effect of a slow-paced, pedestrian no-man’s-land outside of regular life, and their disappearance lean the audience towards a floating timelessness only marked by the changes in lighting.

Director James Macdonald and Lighting Designer Isabella Byrd’s work in this regard is bold and uncompromising. Playing some scenes almost entirely in darkness lends us an intimate insight into these characters’ private lives where desires and flirtations abound, and the stark transitions to daytime leave a wincing impact which is strangely cold, considering the Northern California setting. It feels designed to unsettle and this effect lasts.

That the play seems a little slow moving at times is almost part of the charm – some Annie Baker plays are like a knickerbocker glory, all good but you’ve got to persevere to the end for the best bits. That being said, in treading the line between meaningful silences and nothing happening, we sometimes find ourselves on the wrong side. Mostly, however, this is a thought provoking, funny and unsettling play; Baker’s poignant meditation on the existential and gentle sending up of the everyday.