Infinite Life, National Theatre review ★★★★★

As her previous three National Theatre hits confirmed, Pulitzer-winning playwright Annie Baker (The Antipodes, John, The Flick) is a master at tunnelling into the nucleus of niche, private settings, populating them with a wholly plausible cocktail of characters and enthralling her audience with the early interactions and seminal conversations that take place between them. Infinite Life does all of the above, though unlike ritualistic The Antipodes or eerie John, it retains its naturalism through to the end.

On the surface, it’s about five women at a budget Californian detox retreat, fasting in the hope of curing their ailments – which range from unexplained pains to cancer. But over the course of this slow, searing and increasingly profound two-hour play, it becomes clear that unfulfilled desires and intense longings are often as rooted in those who arrive here as their physical pain.


Christina Kirk (Sofi) in Infinite Life at the National Theatre. Photo: Marc Brenner

The show transfers to the National’s Dorfman Theatre following its New York City premiere, taking the cast – each of whom is authentically at home inside their character – with it. It’s Christina Kirk’s droll, bookish Sofi whose story we’re mostly following. Through probing questions from elderly, impish Eileen (another superb turn from John’s Marylouise Burke), lust-fuelled late-night voicemails to the outside world and sexually charged encounters with Pete Simpson’s Nelson – the only man on site, who in a line that speaks volumes for his character declares his colon pain to be worse than anything Sofi could possibly have experienced – we learn about the 40-something’s troubled present and past regrets.

James Macdonald’s static production captures the lethargy of its detoxing characters, who have just enough energy to emerge from their off-stage bedrooms and flump onto a row of sun loungers each morning. Sofi’s fourth-wall-breaking asides tell us how many hours have passed between each scene of the play, which takes us through her 10-or-so days spent at the retreat.


Marylouise Burke (Eileen) in Infinite Life at the National Theatre. Photo: Marc Brenner

Sofi is the youngest among the group, which also includes Kristine Nielsen’s observant Ginnie, Mia Katigbak’s woo-woo Yvette and Brenda Pressley’s wellness-myth-regurgitating Elaine, who eventually leaves to pick up her cat from a retreat for pets with thyroid issues. Gossipy chit-chat grows more intimate as the women become comfortable with one another; in a taboo-busting turn that’s signature to Baker’s plays, they even agree to listen to audio porn together.

What would be the most dramatically heightened scene of the play is described by Eileen, instead of performed, as if through fear of breaking the stillness. In a similar move to employ our imaginations, Isabella Byrd’s lighting is dimmed from the warm and orangy hues of Californian daytime to barely visible inky tones for Sofi’s nighttime calls, focusing our attention on what’s being said and encouraging us to fill in the blanks.

Infinite Life brings to light the isolating agony of living with chronic pain and hidden disabilities, but at its crux is a more personal story of morally complex yearnings. The visibility and understanding that Sofi and Eileen find in one another in a moving and tender final scene brings this powerful play to an unexpectedly hopeful, bittersweet climax.