Interludes

THE HANGOVER REPORT – Annie Baker’s INFINITE LIFE is a strangely profound, stealthily harrowing meditation on pain and pleasure

• By drediman
• September 13, 2023
• No Comments

Last night, Annie Baker’s highly anticipated new play Infinite Life opened Off-Broadway at the Linda Gross Theater courtesy of Atlantic Theater Company (in a co-production with London’s National Theatre). The play follows in a line of exquisitely wrought plays by the Pulitzer Prize winning dramatist that excavate, with scalpel-like intent, the nuances of the human condition through the careful portrayal of seemingly mundane occurrences in life. Her new meditation of a play tracks the experiences of a group of mostly older women at a northern California purging/fasting center as they face the remainder of their lives within the context of their failing bodies and even frailer psyches.

In plays like John and now Infinite Life, Baker has been moving from the strictly naturalistic realm (e.g., Circle Jerk Transformation, The Aliens, The Flick) into one that’s more freely expressionistic. That’s not to say that her latest work does away with intensely observant representations of day-to-day life. On the contrary, I’d argue that her grasp on the unceremonious aspects of living is stronger than ever, which is here not only emphasized necessarily by the play’s setting, but also by the playwright’s manipulation of time and silence (be forewarned, there’s a lot of categorical “dead time” depicted onstage over the course of the play’s nearly two hour intermission-less running time). Thematically, Infinite Life looks to meaningfully penetrate and articulate such inescapable yet intangible notions as pain and pleasure — both of the carnal and psychological varieties — which it does in a manner that’s strangely profound and stealthily harrowing, especially for those patient enough to thoroughly immerse themselves in Baker’s porous world.

The Atlantic Theater Company production has been directed with sleek minimalism James Macdonald. For this off-Broadway premiere, he’s assembled some of the city’s stalwart stage actresses of a certain age. Although the work is at heart an ensemble effort, its arguably anchored by the character of Sofi, which is played with raw, intentionally uncertain cadence by Christina Kirk. The other extraordinary actresses — Kristine Nielsen, Brenda Pressley, Marylouise Burke, and Mia Katigbak (as well as the lone actor Pete Simpson) — follow suite, filling in the blanks of Baker’s play with great subtlety, utmost empathy, and the clear-eyed determination of sheer survival.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED 

INFINITE LIFE
Off-Broadway, Play
Atlantic Theater Company at the Linda Gross Theatee
1 hour, 50 minutes (without an intermission)
Through October 8