Talk of a “cost-of-living crisis” has become so ubiquitous that it’s in danger of devolving into cliche and solipsism; the fact that everyone feels some kind of economic pressure doesn’t mean we’re all going through it together. Polish-American playwright Martyna Majok’s 2018 drama Cost of Living predates this crisis, but it weirdly embodies the kind of false equivalencies that allow rich people to feel poor and able-bodied people to feel disabled.
Perhaps it’s a question of timing – issues with our own NDIS have become so pressing they seem to cry out for a more immediate, localised response – but I suspect it’s also a failure of nerve. Majok adopts the choppy, awkward register of the meet-cute for most of the piece and, while she touches on some complex themes, she also indulges in some wispy sentimentality. The result is a play that seems to pull its punches, that comforts precisely where it should provoke and challenge.
Cost of Living deals with two sets of people navigating the world of care and physical disability, toggling between two unrelated case studies that only coalesce in the play’s final – and finally problematic – scene. The first pair are Ani (Rachel Edmonds) and Eddie (Aaron Pedersen). They’re recently divorced (although, crucially, they haven’t signed the papers) and dealing with the fallout of a devastating accident that’s left Ani a paraplegic. The second pair are John (Oli Pizzey Stratford) and Jess (Mabel Li). He is a PhD student with cerebral palsy and she is a bartender hoping for work on the side.
