FINDING NEW ABILITIES
Cost of Living is full of surprises, and I don’t mean inflation or unexpected banking fees. Speakeasy Stage Company brings the Pulitzer-winning play from playwright Martyna Majok to Boston in an affecting and satisfying production directed by Alex Lonati that made an hour and three-quarters of intermission-free time fly by.
Cost of Living indulges the very human desire to peer into the lives of others. For people without disabilities, the opportunity to better understand the challenges faced by those in the disability community is satisfying. Not that everyone with a physical disability shares the same challenges, any more than all of those who are able-bodied share the same challenges. This obvious point is brought home by the final surprise in this production when we see that while Sean Leviashvili (John) and Stephanie Gould (Ani), both of whom play characters with disabilities, have disabilities themselves but not necessarily those we might expect.
The play begins with a monologue from Eddie (Lewis D. Wheeler), a truck driver who is mourning the loss of his wife Ani. He texts her from time to time and as he talks about his grief, we form a picture of a certain type of relationship. That picture will be upended in the course of the play. Another relationship that will be upended is that between Jess (Gina Fonseca) and John. Jess applies for and is hired as an aid to John, a Ph.D. candidate at Princeton. John makes it clear that money is not an issue for him, while Jess is working two bartending jobs in addition to her work as a home care provider. She shaves and bathes John and their relationship grows until yet another surprise takes place—one of miscommunication that reshuffles the characters and makes clear that everyone, able-bodied or not, has “disabilities” and challenges, even if they are not physical or apparent.
The opening set (Janie E. Howland) is an assemblage of windows and doors and rectangular spaces. Waiting for the show to start, I wondered—were these points of access? Or barriers? Did the rectangular shapes represent the difficulties posed by steps, curbs, and other obstacles to those who rely on wheelchairs to get around? Impressively, as the show progresses, we have a shower stall with a working shower and a bathtub filled with water. For people with certain types of physical disabilities, there are settings that require physical intimacy from strangers or perhaps even antagonists.
Cost of Living, Majok’s Broadway debut, was nominated for a Tony for Best Play. Majok has stipulated that the characters with disabilities be played by actors with disabilities, a condition that has provided important opportunities for actors who might otherwise have difficulty finding roles.
By the end of the play, it is quite clear that the cost of living is a willingness to be vulnerable in many different ways, to offer help and accept it, to be, in fact, fully human.
photos courtesy of Nile Scott Studios
Cost of Living
SpeakEasy Stage Company
Roberts Studio Theatre, Stanford Calderwood Pavilion
Boston Center for the Arts, 527 Tremont Street in Boston
ends on October 15, 2023
for tickets (starting at $25), call 617.933.8600 or visit SpeakEasyStage
