by Time has become complicated, but small events are recorded with surprising vividness. The combination of lethargy and stabbing intensity that characterized lockdown is probably the closest many of us lucky ones have come to experiencing what it’s like to have a chronic illness. The American playwright Annie Baker is not the first person 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 surely the first to demonstrate the all-encompassing nature of the disease to such extraordinary and dramatic effect.
Endless life It is set in a clinic in which normal life is turned upside down, as if in a negative impression. In front of a lightly decorative wall, five women lie on deck chairs and drink drinks through bent straws. They are not enjoying cocktails while sunbathing: they are fasting; some of them are absorbing chemicals. A man shows up but hey, he’s subsidiary, he’s actually there mainly to be ogled. Oh, and the youngest of these women is 47 years old. Her age, which makes them unusual stage stars, and her free chatter are reminiscent of Caryl Churchill. He escaped alone, which the director of Baker’s play, James Macdonald, staged with the same pointed lightness. There is another echo: everyday observations and mild manners turn into wildness and small oddity. A woman shows her coloring book; The man has a photo of his colonoscopy on her phone, which another woman wants him to send to her. There is a terrifying description of physical distress during sexual intercourse. And we’re talking about a thyroid camp for cats.
Pinter is right up there with Shakespeare as an emphatic and inventive bastard.
Here, as in previous works. The movie and John – both produced at the National – Baker is meticulous and powerful. He takes things slowly, moving forward minute by minute. This is consistent with the care that invalids take: they walk as if encountering invisible resistance. The gradual development, with dialogues cushioned by considerable silences, becomes increasingly absorbing, demonstrating that when things drag in the theater it is not because the pace is slow but because an imaginative lethargy has set in.
A patient, played by Christina Kirk, announces the passage of time – “19 minutes” or “21 hours” – with casual disdain. She offers, like all members of the cast, a performance of extraordinary, almost documentary transparency. She is lying down reading Daniel Deronda. I have never seen anyone so clearly show the small, irritated eye roll a reader gives when interrupted, nor have I heard such a good account of that book: boring when you are away from it, but fascinating when you are inside it. That turns out to be a description of Endless life itself. A critic cannot capture it: you have to be there.
In a rare mirror image of Baker’s cast, The return home places five men around the polarizing force of one woman. Butchers, boxers and the rustle of stockinged legs: Harold Pinter’s 1965 work is a graphic study of sexual arousal and power maneuvers. His plot shifts violently, with unsettling shifts: a man returns to his all-male family with his young wife; he takes his brother to bed in front of everyone; The men openly dedicated themselves to pimping her. His language is grumpy (Pinter is up there with Shakespeare as an emphatic and inventive bastard), but also balletically ornate. The motives of its characters, fueled by long-buried secrets, are obscured. It’s hard to know who will end up on top.
Stealth and a powerful sense of background are the driving forces of the work. They don’t boost Matthew Dunster’s production. Although jazz plays loudly between scenes to indicate excitement, and sudden lighting changes punctuate and freeze dramatically vital moments, the atmosphere is tepid. Peculiarly swathed in ozone on press night, Moi Tran’s design is too pastel and airy for sleaze. The performances mostly demonstrate rather than hint.
As the intimidating patriarch, Jared Harris waves his cane, makes traffic lights with his arms, and roars. Lisa Diveney, looking like a doll in an unlikely dress with a thigh-high slit, is more deadpan than enigmatic. Robert Emms turns her husband into a simple coward; the work is more convincing with a touch of complicity. However, there is subtlety on the part of Nicolas Tennant and real amoral Pinterest energy on the part of Joe Cole. He has the best speeches, including a witty dissection of Christianity. He delivers them in a voice so sharp it seems disembodied and with a delight of his own that drives him to dance across the stage.
Stephen Sondheim rarely revives Pacific Overtures, first seen on Broadway in 1976, is an intriguing thing: radiated by the brilliance of its composer and lyricist… and undermined by it. The story tells of the opening of Japan to the west, forced by American gunboats in 1853; It is told from the Japanese point of view. The script is by John Weidman.
In a co-production between the Menier and Umeda Arts Theater in Osaka, Matthew White directs a small-scale but sumptuous production. Paul Farnsworth’s set and Ayako Maeda’s costumes are at once bright, austere and playful: simple wooden prows shaped like beaks; the pointed gold-clad shogun; sliding screens; boats sitting on hats; flashing parasols with scarlet flecks.
The problem is exquisite. Several of Sondheim’s issues capture the idea of merging traditions – and of imperialism – so perfectly that there is little need for the surrounding dialogue and chronological arrangement. A rapid-fire series of musical parodies that includes a quick Gilbert and Sullivan takeoff and a can-can (energetically choreographed by Ashley Nottingham) that makes Offenbach look like a minuet composer. A whole history of influence is invoked in A Bowler Hat. A duet between a samurai and his Western-leaning friend wonderfully unites American and Japanese landscapes, rhythms and attitudes. To the sound of raindrops, the two men offer alternative lines of haiku: the water suggests to one the moon, the shining birches, and the silk his lady wears; for the other, it evokes memories of the soggy streets of Boston. Perfectly condensed. As proven in Old friendsEven in the city, Sondheim knows how to capture an entire scene in a song.
Star Ratings (out of five)
Endless life ★★★★★
The return home ★★
Pacific Overtures ★★★
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Endless life It is at the Dorfman, National Theatre, London, until January 13, 2024.
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The return home It is at the Young Vic, London, until 27 January 2024.
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Pacific Overtures It is at Menier Chocolate Factory, London, until February 24, 2024.
