Annie Baker’s Infinite Life takes place at a pain clinic in Northern California (photo by Ahron R. Foster)
INFINITE LIFE
Atlantic Theater Company
Linda Gross Theater
336 West 20th St. between Eighth & Ninth Aves.
Tuesday – Sunday through October 14, $50-$127
atlantictheater.org
“This is agony in its purest form,” Eileen (Marylouise Burke) says in Pulitzer Prize winner Annie Baker’s exquisite new play, Infinite Life, which opened this week at the Atlantic. “A minute of this is an infinity.”
It is never agony watching anything by Baker, whose previous wide-ranging and insightful works include The Flick, Circle Mirror Transformation, The Antipodes, John, and The Aliens. She made her off-Broadway debut at the Atlantic in 2008 with Body Awareness, about which she told the New York Times, “My goal for the play is to not judge anyone, to get at that point where everyone is equally right and equally wrong, so the humor comes from that.” The same can be said for Infinite Life, about six characters who are deeply aware of their bodies, riddled with pain.
The play takes place in 2019 at a Northern California clinic run by an unseen man named Erkin, who treats chronic pain sufferers, mainly women, with water or juice fasts for days or weeks at a time. Eileen, Yvette (Mia Katigbak), Ginnie (Kristine Nielsen), and Elaine (Brenda Pressley) spend most of their time lying on deck chairs and gossiping, but this is no day at the beach. When they are joined by younger newcomer Sofi (Christina Kirk), they are intrigued and pepper her with questions; at first Sofi doesn’t want to share too much but soon reveals more, which tickles the other women’s curiosity. She is reading George Eliot’s final novel, Daniel Deronda, which deals with culture and identity, class and morality, centered by a seemingly heroic male figure and written by a woman who had to pretend she was a man in order to get published.
Eileen (Marylouise Burke) and Sofi (Christina Kirk) discuss life in Atlantic world premiere (photo by Ahron R. Foster)
Ginnie is a flight attendant from the local area who has “auto-immune thyroid stuff,” vertigo, and no filter, freely discussing pornography, carbonation, cantaloupes, rape, and how many sphincters humans have. Elaine, from New Hampshire, is a grandmother who has chronic Lyme disease and likes to draw. Yvette is a Michigander who is in surprisingly good spirits given her severe bladder issues and other health problems. Eileen, the oldest, is a Christian from Wichita who doesn’t appreciate cursing and walks very slowly, her constant pain palpable.
The women are thrown off balance when Nelson (Pete Simpson) arrives, a hunk of a fortysomething man, barefoot and bare-chested, surrounded by an air of mystery. “Who’s Daniel Deronda?” he asks Sofi. “Yeah, I think he’s actually the main character — we met him at the very beginning of the book — but he hasn’t reappeared yet so I don’t know that much about him.” The two of them build a flirtatious relationship that somewhat echoes Eliot’s book as each of the characters delve deeper into their personal situations.
A coproduction with London’s National Theatre, Infinite Life is not just about pain; it specifically focuses on the psychological, emotional, and physical pain inflicted on women by society. When Nelson ultimately shares his illness with Sofi and describes his most painful night, he explains, “I don’t know if you’ve been through childbirth but I met this lady who had the same thing happen to her and she said it was way worse than childbirth.” Sofi, who does not have children, replies, “You don’t actually know if your level of pain that night was worse than my level of pain on my worst night. It’s like impossible to know.” It’s also insulting for a man to compare his pain to a woman’s; Sofi later tells Eileen, “You know, I always feel like I’m lying when I say I’m in pain,” as if it’s just part of her existence that she has to accept. But Eileen counters, “The pain is an error. . . . We have to resist pain because resisting pain is resisting what isn’t true. The only true thing is the Infinite Idea, forever repeating itself.”
Earlier, in one of the many voice messages Sofi leaves for her silent husband, she says, “You must think I’m a monster. Maybe I am a monster. My body is monstrous. My mind is monstrous. So I’m a monster. Congratulations. You married a monster.” In Daniel Deronda, the protagonist, Gwendolen Harleth, argues, “People talk of their motives in a cut and dried way. Every woman is supposed to have the same set of motives, or else to be a monster. I am not a monster, but I have not felt exactly what other women feel — or say they feel, for fear of being thought unlike others.” Eliot’s novel might be set in Victorian England, but the sentiments still ring true today regarding societal expectations of women.
Yvette (Mia Katigbak) shares her astounding health history in Infinite Life (photo by Ahron R. Foster)
Director James Macdonald (Cloud Nine, The Children, Escaped Alone) masterfully guides each scene with with an intoxicating confidence that illuminates every moment. The comfy set by dots features seven chaises longues, ensuring that at least one is always empty, leading audience members to wonder what it would like to occupy one. Ásta Bennie Hostetter’s costumes are casual but not relaxed; only Ginnie and Nelson are dressed as if they are poolside, while the others are fully clothed and wear shoes. Isabella Byrd’s sharp lighting delineates the time of day, with Sofi calling out the shifts: “Twenty minutes later,” “Five hours later,” “Two days later. Maybe three days later?” Bray Poor’s sound includes crickets in the background, as if no one is listening to the women’s problems.
The fantastic cast is led by Kirk (Clybourne Park, Knickerbocker), who mixes sadness with a certain sex appeal, and Burke (Ripcord, True West), whose character offers a moving epiphany at the end. Katigbak (Out of Time, Awake and Sing!) and Nielsen (Gary: A Sequel to Titus Andronicus, Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike) give their characters a poignant warmth and charm, while Pressley (The Lyons, Dreamgirls) brings a strong practicality to Elaine. Simpson (Is This a Room, Measure for Measure) clearly relishes his role as the easygoing object of desire.
“I had to accept being in pain all the time,” Yvette says early on, as if speaking for all women. That acceptance, passed on from generation to generation, is questioned by Baker in the gorgeous finale, which, if it doesn’t promise relief, at least promises a more generous way to hold our human suffering.
[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer and editor; you can follow him on Substack here.]