Can joy coexist with suffering? This thought-provoking play suggests it can — and takes the question one step further

In our greatest moments of suffering, is there room for joy to coexist? Yes, suggests Annie Baker in her thought-provoking new play “Infinite Life,” now receiving a note-perfect Canadian premiere at Toronto’s Coal Mine Theatre. 
But the American playwright takes it one step further. Not only can joy coexist with pain, she seems to say, but it must. For the temporary residents of the mysterious health retreat in Baker’s drama, finding joy and humour amid their excruciating suffering is key to their survival.
These moments of joy are small and come from unexpected sources: a colouring book, a novel, a live video feed of a cat. To the outside eye, perhaps they’re even imperceptible. Yet they’re enough to help these individuals cope.
This idea of coping — not healing — is central to Baker’s play. And there’s nothing sentimental in the way she depicts this process. “Infinite Life,” in fact, is as antisentimental as they come. But that’s what makes the work such a profoundly honest inquiry: into pain, suffering and self-acceptance.
The 105-minute drama is plotless, much like Baker’s other plays that have graced Toronto stages over the past decade. Neither is it a slice-of-life drama, though, as much as it is a work filled with piecemeal slivers of survival.
I’d propose, instead, that what Baker has created is a kind of concept play. Its musical counterpart is well known. The American composer Stephen Sondheim was a master of the form, creating works devoid of narrative that focused intently on the evocation of a specific mood and theme. His 1970 musical “Company” concentrated on the notion of marriage, through the eyes of its protagonist Bobby, a 35-year-old perpetual bachelor, and his married friends. 
In Baker’s “Infinite Life,” the focus is on suffering and the predominant mood — for me at least — is that of hope. Baker’s Bobby is 47-year-old Sofi (Christine Horne). It’s through her that we meet the other five patients (four older women and one man) in the play’s California health retreat, each living with their own set of ailments, from chronic pain to cancer. 
The scenes, set chronologically throughout Sofi’s weeklong stay at the health retreat, are “cut” from her perspective. “Eight hours later,” “18 minutes later,” “25 hours later,” she interjects between vignettes to establish the passage of time. 
Time, however, stretches and contracts in the play, much like how pain warps our sense of it. This plasticity makes the scenes initially seem disparate. The patients spend their days jabbering about seemingly inconsequential matters — pesticides, philosophy, pornography — all while sitting outdoors on six chaises longues. 
But slowly, Baker establishes how these snapshots are interconnected, drawing her audience into the play’s thematic vortex: as Sofi struggles to come to terms with her suffering — “I’m living in a nightmare,” she says at one point — we see how those around her cope with theirs. 
Yvette (Kyra Harper) recounts her maladies with a singsong flippancy. “I had to accept being in a pain all the time,” she admits, like a warrior shrugging off the realities of battle. 
And in one of the play’s most poignant moments, we see Jean Yoon‘s Ginnie apply makeup to her face. It’s an exercise that clearly brings her joy. But as Sofi watches, seated beside her, there’s a judgmental look of disapproval on her face, as if wondering how someone can allow themselves to experience some semblance of happiness in the midst of their condition. Her expression, though, soon shifts, if ever so slightly. Disapproval turns into acceptance, which then turns into a faint air of admiration. 
Baker’s play is built on these quiet, fragmentary scenes. And using these building blocks, what she ultimately achieves is the exaltation of mundanity. This untheatrical style, displaying a startling understanding of the human condition, is a hallmark of her work. But it seems incredibly fitting here. Suffering, after all, so often is painfully mundane. Yet within that mundanity, we still have the capacity to experience joy, happiness, discovery. 
Director Jackie Maxwell’s staging feels beautifully intimate. Baker’s touches of humour are never lost and the six-member company — rounded out by Nancy Palk, Brenda Bazinet and Ari Cohen — are all in top form. But there’s also a curious ambiguity to Maxwell’s production. 
My overarching takeaway from Baker’s play is a sense of hope and optimism. Maybe it’s because I’m young and naive, having never experienced anything close to what Baker’s characters go through. But I can also see how someone could view the play as something far darker. (There are hints of this darkness embedded throughout.)
Maybe none of the joy that these characters experience is genuine. Is it all a fake guise to hide their true emotions? Behind closed doors, perhaps the other five patients are quietly suffering just as much as Horne’s Sofi. We’ll never know as we never see them alone. Such is the puzzle of “Infinite Life.” And with Baker, you’d expect nothing less.