Time has become sticky, but small events register with surprising vividness. The combination of lethargy and stabbing intensity that characterized the lockdown is probably the closest many of us, the lucky ones, have come to experiencing what it’s like to be chronically ill. The American playwright Annie Baker is not the first to suggest that pain is another country, something you can be ‘in’: for once an invocation of Virginia Woolf in a theater program is justified. However, Baker is certainly the first to demonstrate the all-encompassing nature of disease with such extraordinarily dramatic effect.
Infinite life is set in a clinic where normal life is reversed, as if in a negative print. In front of a lightly decorative wall, five women stretch out on lounge chairs and drink through curved straws. They don’t enjoy cocktails while sunbathing: they fast; Some of them suck up chemicals. One man shows up, but he is subordinate, mainly for ogling. Oh, and the youngest of these women is 47. Their age, which makes them unusual stage stars, and their freewheeling talkativeness are reminiscent of Caryl Churchill’s Only escaped, which the director of Baker’s play, James Macdonald, performed with the same piercing lightness. There is another echo: everyday observations and mild manners jump into wildness and small strangeness. One woman shows her coloring book; the man has a photo of his colonoscopy on his phone, which another woman wants him to send her. There is a terrifying description of physical pain during sex. And talk about a thyroid camp for cats.
Pinter stands next to Shakespeare as an emphatic, inventive curser
Here, as in previous plays The Flick And John – both produced at the National – Baker is meticulous and powerful. She takes it slowly, minute by minute. This corresponds to the care shown by the disabled: they walk as if they encounter an invisible resistance. The gradual unfolding, with the dialogue cushioned by significant silences, becomes increasingly engaging, proving that when things drag in the theater it is not because the pace is slow, but because the imagination has kicked in.
One patient, played by Christina Kirk, announces the passage of time – “19 minutes” or “21 hours” – with nonchalant disdain. She, like every member of the cast, gives a performance of extraordinary, almost documentary transparency. She lies stretched out reading Daniel Deronda. I’ve never seen anyone make so clearly the small, irritated eye movement a reader makes when interrupted, or heard such a good account of that book—boring when you’re not in it, yet fascinating when you’re in it. That turns out to be a description of Infinite life yourself. Criticism cannot grasp it: you have to be there.
In a strange mirror image of Baker’s cast, The homecoming places five men around the polarizing power of one woman. Butchers, boxers and the whisper of stockinged legs: Harold Pinter’s 1965 play is a graphic study of sexual excitement and power maneuvers. The plot shifts violently, with unnerving changes: a man returns with his young wife to his all-male family; she takes his brother to bed before their eyes; the men started pimping her openly. The language is growling – Pinter is on a par with Shakespeare as an emphatic, inventive curser – but also balletically decorated. The characters’ motives, fueled by long-hidden secrets, remain unclear. It’s hard to predict who will come out on top.
Stealth and a powerful sense of undercurrent are the engines of the piece. They are not the driving force behind Matthew Dunster’s production. Although jazz blasts loudly between scenes to signal excitement, and sudden lighting changes dramatically highlight and freeze vital moments, the atmosphere is lukewarm. Moi Tran’s design, strangely coated in ozone at press night, is too pastel and roomy for shady hug robbers. Performances demonstrate rather than insinuate.
As a bullying patriarch, Jared Harris brandishes his cane, waves his arms and bellows. Lisa Diveney, doll-like in an unlikely dress with a thigh-slit slit, is more blank than enigmatic. Robert Emms just makes her husband look like a wuss; the play is more convincing with a hint of complicity. However, there is subtlety from Nicolas Tennant and real Pinterish amoral energy from Joe Cole. He has the best speeches, including a useful dissection of Christianity. He delivers them in a voice so clipped that it seems disembodied and with a self-satisfaction that makes him dance around the stage.
Stephen Sondheim is rarely revived Pacific overtures, first seen on Broadway in 1976, is intriguing: irradiated by the genius of the composer-lyricist – and undermined by it. The story follows Japan’s opening to the west, forced by United States gunboats in 1853; it is told from a Japanese perspective. The script is by John Weidman.
In a co-production between the Menier and the Umeda Arts Theatre, Osaka, Matthew White directs a small-scale but opulent production. Paul Farnsworth’s set and Ayako Maeda’s costumes are alternately glittering, austere and playful: simple, beak-like wooden bows; the shogun in spiky gold; sliding screens; boats sitting on hats; flickering, red-spotted parasols.
The problem is excellent. Several of Sondheim’s songs capture the idea of the merging of traditions—and of imperialism—so perfectly that there is little need for the surrounding dialogue and establishing chronology. A fast-paced series of musical parodies includes a quick take-off from Gilbert and Sullivan and a can-can (lively choreographed by Ashley Nottingham) that makes Offenbach look like a composer of minuets. A Bowler Hat evokes a whole history of influence. A duet between a samurai and his Western-oriented friend beautifully combines American and Japanese landscapes, rhythms and postures. To the sound of raindrops, the two men offer alternative haikus: the water is reminiscent of the moon, glittering birch trees and the silk his lady wears; for others it brings back memories of the soaking wet streets of Boston. Perfectly condensed. As shown Old friendsstill in town, Sondheim can fit an entire scene into a song.
Star ratings (out of five)
Infinite life ★★★★★
The homecoming ★★
Pacific overtures ★★★
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Infinite life runs until January 13, 2024 at Dorfman, National Theatre, London
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The homecoming is at the Young Vic, London until January 27, 2024
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Pacific overtures is on display at the Menier Chocolate Factory, London until February 24, 2024