Review: INFINITE LIFE, National Theatre

“How can I know the pain of others?” Philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein’s later work centred around the seemingly banal question. Long story short, we cannot. I know my pain when I stub my toe. But how do I know you feel the same experience, or indeed anything at all? Much like Annie Baker’s new play, that intricately coils the question at its heart, seemingly simple ideas can masquerade mesmerising philosophical depth.

On the surface it appears disarmingly austere. Five women lie outstretched on sun kissed deck chairs. Insect murmurs linger in the faded distance. They are at a Californian wellness retreat, killing time whilst hooked up to a Water Fast that promises to detoxify them (physically or spiritually we begin to wonder).

They cheerily exchange pleasantries, husbands, children, jobs, whittling down conversation to the women’s symptoms and old wives tales that border on paranoia. Despite their cordial appearance languishing in the sun, each desperately seek remedies for their suffering. “Carbonation is bad for your bones” one says with maternal nous whilst sipping from her water bottle. But what happens when there is no cure?

Originally scheduled for 2021, the play has taken on a subtle immediacy in a post pandemic world. It’s not just epistemic uncertainty about disease, but the uncertain relationship we have with our bodies that burrows under the skin. We seem to know very little about them, not just what causes various sensations, not just how cells and proteins interact on a microscopic level, but why we must suffer. Religious allusions are intriguingly garnished throughout and ethicist Emmanuel Levinas gets a namedrop in the programme. 

The twist almost imperceptibly reveals itself; just as I cannot imagine your pain - I cannot imagine your desire either. For Baker the two are not on opposite ends of the human experience. they are tangled, intimately interwoven in a fleshy bundle that we struggle to label with words. Sofi, an LA airhead whose journey through the retreat we follow most closely, reveals that her physical ailments cause her pain after sex. Her suffering is an emotional dilemma, as much as a physical one, that pushes at the boundaries of language and has driven a wedge through her already fragmenting marraige. 

Needless to say, Baker truly is a powerful writer. The effortless juggling of high concepts alongside deadpan humour that teeters on the absurd is something not many writers can pull off so elegantly. Each sentence is so delicately crated with an idiosyncratic pulse of its own that exchanges could shatter at any moment. A perfectly tailored cast ensure that doesn’t happen (speical mention to Marylouise Burke's withering octogenarian Eileen).

Admittedly it’s not the easiest play to get your teeth into. Director James Macdonald ramps up the Californian sultriness to the extent that you can feel its languorous aura a little too well. The script demands the wellness retreat to become an all-encompassing purgatorial void just in a parallel to Waiting for Godot, one of many parallels to be drawn between the two. You will doubt if the formula works. But give it patience and you will be richly rewarded.

Infinite Life plays at the National Theatre until 13 January

Photography Credit: Marc Brenner

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