In Broadway’s ‘Cost of Living,’ intimacy and the ties that bind unravel
Cost of Living premiered at Williamstown Theatre Festival in 2016, transferred Off-Broadway a year later, then won the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, the world spun on a different axis.
Empathy was a concept from a far-off land, soon to be catapulted by a global pandemic that crystalized our collective relationship with mortality.Majok’s play, now appearing on Broadway, is a contemplative and occasionally harsh look at the hands we’ve been dealt and how they’re played.
Featuring four Tony-worthy performances, this North Jersey slice-of-life dramedy questions ties that bind and love that endures under circumstances few of us will ever experience.Cost of Living begins with Eddie (David Zayas) drinking seltzer at a hipster bar in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. “The sh*t that happens is not to be understood,” he plainly states before sharing the story of a string of text messages from his estranged dead wife, Ani (Katy Sullivan).Through a series of scenes that unfold on Wilson Chun’s revolving set, moodily lit by Jeff Croiter, we come to understand the complexity of Eddie and Ani’s relationship.
On the verge of a divorce, she was involved in an accident that left her with a severe incomplete spinal cord injury and now lives as a quadriplegic; their relationship looks like a messy page from a coloring book, forced out of the lines due to guilt, rage, love, lust, and looming health insurance bills.Across town and several rings up the socioeconomic ladder lives John (Gregg Mozogala), a wealthy Ph.D.
