Infinite Life

 

I popped into town on a last minute whim and got a great £20 ticket right by the stage for this new play by Annie Baker.  The journey by train was a bit painful so I rushed in to the auditorium out of breath just as they were closing the doors, wriggling out of my coat as the lights went down.

This play was an immediate change of pace.  Sofi (Christina Kirk) arrives first, with her book, to sit in one of the many sun loungers, eventually joined by Eileen (Marylouise Burke) and one of those desultory conversations follows that might happen by a pool or in a hotel garden. But it becomes clear that Sofi, Eileen and the other residents are actually at some kind of strange clinic (which used to be a motel and where the patio overlooks a car park and a bakery) and all are undergoing strict cleansing regimes.  

Over the next hour and 45 minutes there are snippets of conversation with long pauses and then jumps in time called out by Sofi ...'5 hours later’ ...‘22 hours later’ ...where sometimes nothing has changed. All are in physical pain of some kind and we get to hear about their strange and multiple ailments, all of which they are hoping to have cured by maybe 14  or even 24 days of water only, or maybe juice.   There are lots of laughs to be had from the truly bizarre, sometimes trivial, sometimes deep conversations which may or may not have anything to do with their pain or ailments.  The looong pauses speak volumes, and the slow pace means that we appreciate every tiny inflection in voice, body or expression, beautifully enacted by all of the ensemble cast, showing how humanity remains and even flourishes, regardless of terrible circumstances.  

There’s a fair amount of musing about sex and desire here too, and the silver fox, Nelson (Pete Simpson)  who turns up for his own treatment has Sofi wondering if maybe there is a better way to cure her pain, although his competitive approach to their relative pain might be one of the things that puts her off a bit.  It raises a fair point though, that we can't actually experience each other's pain, so maybe talking about it is all we can do.  Once each of the characters have done their time, they pack up and move in. 

So, what on earth is all of this about?  Amongst the deliberately glacial pace, there are pretty good jokes but also there’s loads of stuff here about mind over matter, how much each are responsible for their own suffering, how do you live a good life when it is full of pain, and how can your body give both pleasure and pain.  While this is a pretty quirky clinic, it is also both practically and metaphorically a purgatory.  And the unseen godlike doctor decides how long the stay will be and when they will leave.  Although the question by the end was how long would the rest of the purgatory last after they had left the clinic.  The last minute revelation by Sofi and Eileen that they could ease each others pain at least temporarily left that as a bit of an open question.

I found the pace quite challenging but the only thing to do was surrender to it, and so it turned out to be  really enjoyable and interesting.  So I felt quite refreshed as well as meditative as I arrived at Waterloo to join the scrum of life again.