The characters of Martyna Majok’s Cost of Living, making its Broadway debut after acclaimed runs off Broadway and in London want so much: love, understanding, dignity, care, a safe and warm place to sleep away the night. Here is one thing that doesn’t make the list – your pity.
Majok’s Pulitzer-winning play (or two plays, really, with a valedictory intersection) is set in contemporary New Jersey and told mostly in flashback, though its structure doesn’t crystallize until its last scene. Under Jo Bonney’s clear-eyed, unfussed direction, one half of its turntable stage is occupied by Eddie (David Zayas), a truck driver who lost his license in a DUI, and his estranged wife Ani (Katy Sullivan), who lost the use of her limbs in a recent unrelated accident. On the other are Jess (Kara Young), a Princeton grad working several survival jobs, and John (Gregg Mozgala), a PhD candidate with cerebral palsy who hires her to wash and dress him.
