There is an inertia to Annie Baker’s play written before the pandemic but delayed by it.  The play is not about the women being exploited by quackery but having watched a close friend die from cancer who clutched at promises of a cure, I am very aware of chicanery in the context of the desperation of the dying and those in chronic pain. The only hope from these “cures” would have been psychosomatic, the belief in a miracle becoming a reality. 

The first thing the director said was for the actors to walk hesitantly communicating the pain in every movement.  The oldest is Eileen (Marylouise Burke) who is really doddery and believes in Christian Science and leaves when the conversation is too sexually explicit for her taste.  We watch as Elaine walks painfully out of the sun lounger area. Ginnie (Kristine Neilson) will educate us on the number of sphincters in unlikely places in the human body, Elaine (Brenda Pressley) is colouring in a colouring book.

Yvette (Mia Katigbak) tells us that she has returned because “the cancer is back”.  Yvette talks about a friend who describes porn movies for the blind.  Yvette has steeped herself in medical information and misinformation from the internet, listing off her multiple symptoms and diseases and the drug answers “clotrimazole and econazole and fluconazole and ketoconazole and itraconazole and voriconazole” all anti-fungals to treat vaginal thrush. 

It is the arrival of a lone man Nelson (Pete Simpson) who raises Sofi’s desire for sex but his open marriage has a startling pre-condition which is designed to kill anyone’s desire.  Infinite Life didn’t inspire me to recommend it.