By SHARON EBERSON
Chronic pain has invaded the bodies of every character in Infinite Life. It is embedded as a constant companion, even as they lounge in the sun, ruminating on their paths to a fasting clinic, sipping water, hungering for peace, conjuring lustful distractions and supporting each other in their separate journeys.
In a quietly compelling 110 minutes, the Annie Baker play now at barebones productions in Braddock, does not tick off any boxes of expectations; rather, it lives and breathes in a singular realm of slow-burn storytelling.
For Sofi, a youthful 47, who protests that she’s not that much younger than the other women who welcome her, one by one, the wisdom of experience is as near as the chaise longues right beside her.
Overwhelmed by self-loathing, sexual urgency and her own unexplained condition, Sofi at first resists the attention of her elders. However, forced into their company over several days, their will to live with grace and humor would seem to offer more hope and solace than any clinical cleanse.
The play by Pulitzer Prize-winner Baker (The Flick) doesn’t offer up platitudes or cure-alls. Rather, it allows for a meditation on the potential desolation of pain, and the power of support to motivate, and to uplift.
Tami Dixon delivers a powerfully nuanced performance as Sofi, a tangled mess of inner torture. She’s new to the ways of the mysterious Northern California clinic and the unseen Dr. Erkin, who sets the rules of fasting. The visitors seem to spend hours upon hours doing nothing but sipping water or juice and fighting off hunger — real and metaphorical — while trying to rid themselves of the “bile” that has made such a mess of their bodies.
The marvelous Sheila McKenna, as Yvette, describes, in matter-of-fact, jaw-dropping medical jargon, her character’s victories over seemingly every disease known to humans.
The eye-opening monologue serves and ode to the body’s tolerance for pain.
Yet, Yvette doesn’t tell her story to be competitive about whose pain is worse — although that is a seeming side effect for newcomers. It is what she lives with, moment to moment, and she makes it heart-wrenching without making a fuss.
Others reaching out to Dixon’s Sofi continue the Murderers’ Row of Pittsburgh actresses: seemingly uptight but sweet Eileen (Cary Anne Spears), matriarchal Elaine (Karla Payne), and saucy Ginnie (Helena Ruoti).
at a fasting clinic, hoping for an escape from pain. (Image: Louis Stein)
That’s a lot of firepower for the intentionally languorous pace the work demands, with director Patrick Jordan maintains a proportional balance of subtlety and turning up the heat.
The women who have been to the clinic previously, while dealing with their own struggles, try continually to pull Sofi out of her shell.
When she’s not on the phone, dealing with a crisis at home, Sofi often is seen with the notoriously long book, “Daniel Deronda,” by George Eliot. It’s purpose is a bit on the nose, when Sofi reads a passage from it, but, “What are you reading?” also serves as a path to introductions.
“If I’m not reading it all the time it seems really boring,” Sofi says of the book, “but once I’m into it, it’s like the most entertaining thing in the world.”
The women note that men at the clinic are rare, but one enters their midst, shirtless. He is not the first to ask Sofi about the book, and she immediately gravitates toward Nelson (Michael Tisdale).
His presence provides a bit of a spark from the humdrum for all the women, who readily share their lusty thoughts, but, for Sofi, he presents a test of resolve.
Time passes in abrupt and inconsistent fits and starts at the clinic, where Dixon’s Sofi is told she should stay for 8-to-10 days. Sometimes, she announces the number of hours that have passed, while at other times, dialogue or moody lighting by Andrew David Ostrowski signal night and day, and the clinic’s occupants rotate their positions on the patio.
A peachy shade of beige permeates Tony Ferreri’s scenic design, including the symmetrical dividers that audiences must walk past, emerging onto the patio/stage to reach the dull beige cushions that await them.
The calming vibe of the set is perfectly juxtaposed to the physical agony we know these characters are facing. They are aware of the workings of their bodies in ways few know, and most would not want to know — through disease and treatments and the mysterious thing we call pain, that we relegate on a scale of 1 to 10, but with an impact that is immeasurable.
When Nelson claims that, no matter how bad Sofi’s pain has been, his has been worse, she comes back at him: “You don’t actually know if your level of pain that night was worse than my level of pain on my worst night. It’s like, impossible to know.”What we do know from Infinite Life is that a life spent in infinite pain may be just a little less fraught and a little more tolerable with the support of others who have gone through something similar, and who keep on going.
TICKETS AND DETAILS
Infinite Life is at barebones productions’ Braddock Black Box Theater, 1211 Braddock Ave., through March 22, 2026, 7:30 p.m. Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays, and 2 p.m. on Sundays and Saturday, March 21. Tickets: Visit https://www.barebonesproductions.com/infinite-life.
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