Annie Baker is known for writing Naturalist plays. Naturalism is a theatrical style that considers the mundane and the everyday, the worker and the workplace, worthy of drama. 19th century French playwrights Jean Jullien and Émile Zola first advocated for this kind of "slice of life" playwriting. Baker's scripts capture everyday conversations and communication failures.
In The Antipodes Baker dramatizes a workplace using everyday language that includes overlapping speech, interrupted sentences, stammers, and slang.
In The Antipodes Baker dramatizes a workplace using everyday language that includes overlapping speech, interrupted sentences, stammers, and slang.
Although The Antipodes uses Naturalist aesthetics, Baker also employs an Absurdist structure in this script. Critic Martin Esslin coined the term Theatre of the Absurd in 1961 to describe a style of playwriting that challenges logical cause and effect and questions the limitations of language as a tool for communication. Absurdist plays often use a circular or spiral structure where characters end up in a similar place where they began.
In The Antipodes the characters strive to find the perfect story for their project, but never seem to achieve their goal. They keep searching for something that is just beyond their reach.
"Picture taking a hike and thinking you've walked in a straight line but suddenly you've found yourself back where you started and you're staring at your old self, the self who stood there at the beginning of the hike...." —Annie Baker, The Antipodes