American playwright Annie Baker, a Pulitzer prize winner and awardee of the MacArthur Foundation “genius grant”, wrote her first play in 2008. Since then, her works have been performed in Australia lovingly but sparingly across a mix of independent and main stages.
In Sydney, Baker’s attention to the minutia of human communication, psychology and behaviour – manifested by characters stumbling over their sentences, breaking off mid-syllable and lapsing into pauses that can stretch on for minutes – has been most keenly observed by indie company Outhouse Theatre Co, working in tiny black box theatres. Baker’s plays have thrived in these intimate spaces, where it feels like their sense of time becomes yours: you fall into Baker’s pauses, breathing with the actors as their chests rise and fall.
