Early on in Martyna Majok’s quietly devastating and Pulitzer Prize-winning Cost Of Living, a character stands on the threshold of a small apartment in New Jersey to offer his ex-wife some unsolicited advice. After his wife Ani (Rachel Edmonds) was paralysed in an accident, Eddie (Aaron Pedersen) quickly left her. But here he is in an open-buttoned flannel to tell her one way she might recover some feeling in her body – by listening to music.
Ani, never one to shy away from calling Eddie a prick, tears him a new one, thank god. But eventually she concedes that there is some truth to his advice. “You listen,” she says, tapping her finger on the toggle of her motorised wheelchair like she’s playing piano, “and… your body tries to imitate the… sense for the things it’s missing. The broken things. The shit that’s disconnected. And it tries to bring everything back together.”
It’s as good a metaphor as any for Majok’s show, which arrives in Melbourne after much-lauded seasons in Brisbane and Sydney. This is a work about connection: what we do to seek it out and why we might deny it. Brought to the Sumner Theatre by director Anthea Williams, it’s a challenging and life-affirming watch, both expertly acted and beautifully rendered.
The play’s two-hour run time is split between two storylines. There’s Eddie and Ani: two exes trying to reconnect while navigating ongoing caregiving and the long-held resentments reserved for the recently separated. And Jess (Mabel Li) and John (Oli Pizzey Stratford): a bartender trying her hand at disabled care for the first time and a graduate student at Princeton with cerebral palsy trying to navigate a new connection.
The near-plotless script is driven forward by scenes that show the level of intimacy between each pairing slowly deepening. Jess and John go from biting at each other during a cold interview in a bougie penthouse suite, to sharing their insecurities while bathing. Eddie and Ani go from throwing insults to planning a trip to Maine. Williams is careful not to overdirect intimate scenes, allowing us to revel in the quietest physical actions and emotional beats – whether Eddie is miming a piano trill on Ani’s arm, or Jess is drying John off from a shower in silence. Movement consultant Lyndall Grant deserves a shout out here, so beautifully choreographed are the scenes of physical intimacy between each pair. Compositions from Jethro Woodward are similarly subtle, offering a light touch of folk-style guitar to help smoothen transitions rather than exaggerate dramatic beats.
But with greater intimacy comes greater challenges, and as the show continues, each couple finds their connection tested by key differences. They are each separated by physical ability, yes, but it’s class that Majok singles out as the ultimate alienator. John’s wealth is the biggest obstacle to the possibility for real connection in the end.
You might think of Majok as the bawdier counterpoint to Annie Baker, sharing her character-driven naturalism, but trading in softly spoken characters for a more voluble and abrasive set of New Jersey natives. There is great pressure on the performers, as a result. Thankfully there’s not a weak link among the cast.
As Jess, Li is at once abrasive and warm. Her brashness and charisma (and a near-perfect New Jersey accent) feels at all times undergirded by a deep fragility that lends tragedy to the show’s final scenes. Pizzey Stratford, meanwhile, remains likeable despite his character’s frustrating ignorance, similarly anchoring John’s cockiness with an endearing insecurity. But it is Edmonds and Pedersen’s show. The pair’s chemistry elevates every scene, with Pedersen matching Edmonds’ gregariousness with a down-to-earth humour and subtlety that lends a lived-in quality to every screamed insult or subtle declaration of love.
The only sticking point to this production is its set design. Where Sydney Theatre Company put us in a brutalist concrete grey, here designer Matilda Woodroofe has chosen to recreate Ani’s apartment and John’s penthouse on stage with startling detail that uses a revolve to take us from one locale to the other. This photorealistic set lends legitimacy to scenes but it overemphasises Majok’s naturalism in a way that makes us sensitive to moments – flashbacks, scene transitions, or near-melodramatic lines – that feel unnatural. The effect is jarring, and most notable in the show’s final scene which becomes relegated to a tiny slither of space at the front of the stage; the revolve a cumbersome spectre in the background still visible enough to be distracting.
But this minor quibble doesn’t compromise the show’s effectiveness. What one takes away from this sterling production is a life-affirming sense of our shared connection that never slips into the saccharine or didactic. It lets the simplicity of our lives – in the sharing of a piece of classical music, a cold slice of pizza or a day-old flask of coffee – speak to our shared experience. And as the final stop in a near-national tour, it also offers another example of the worth of stories that spotlight people with disabilities with nuance and care.
Cost of Living is playing at Melbourne Theatre Company’s Southbank Theatre until October 19 and tickets start from $75. Book yours here.
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