Calling Playwright Annie Baker the Anti-Mamet Works Well With Her Latest, ‘Infinite Life’

Baker’s approach, in musical terms, tends to be more largo — slower in pace and stately, but with deceptive bites contained in both the words and the silences. This is also a very funny play, and a fine showcase for all its cast members.

Ahron R. Foster
Christina Kirk and Marylouise Burke in 'Infinite Life.' Ahron R. Foster

Playwright Annie Baker’s Pulitzer Prize-winning work has sometimes been compared to that of the late Harold Pinter, due to the dramatically and emotionally charged pauses in her dialogue. Yet it might be more accurate, if similarly reductive, to describe her as the anti-David Mamet. Whereas Mr. Mamet is famous for staccato exchanges that furnish a streetwise, often masculine vibe to his work, Ms. Baker’s approach, in musical terms, tends to be more largo — slower in pace and stately, but with deceptive bites contained in both the words and the silences.

This is especially true in Ms. Baker’s latest effort, “Infinite Life,” a one-act piece set at what appears to be a sort of homeopathic clinic in Northern California. The inpatients, most of them older women suffering from debilitating ailments, have been relegated to water or juice fasts for periods of a week or longer. The scenic design, by the design collective dots, consists of lawn chairs where these characters spend most of their days, reserving whatever physical energy they have left.

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