Stage Review - Cost of Living (Sound Theatre)

Stage Review - Cost of Living
Presented By: Sound Theatre Company, Seattle, WA
Date Reviewed: Thursday, June 22, 2023
Reviewed By: Greg Heilman

There are a number of plays that deal with the experience of being disabled, the judgments, the hardships, and the strength it takes to overcome the challenges inherent with living in a world that isn’t made for you. These stories usually transcend a specific experience and speak to other social issues at the same time, such as race and gender, institutionalized ignorance, apathy, and prejudice toward those who don’t fit into a predefined and acceptable box, and even things such as the American health care system. Fewer expand their view to delve into the world of the caregiver and the relationship between those providing care for the disabled and the ones receiving that care. Fewer still cover all of that, while layering on subjects such as grief, the psychology of social interaction, and the social and economic challenges that are a constant in today’s America. Cost of Living, written by Martyna Majok and based on many of her own personal experiences, does just that. The play, onstage now at 12th Avenue Arts in Seattle, and produced by Sound Theatre Company, is a complex onion of a story that tackles more than it sets out to through its depiction of two pairs of relationships between disabled persons and their abled caregivers.

The Sound Theatre production, on stage through July 1 and directed by Teresa Thuman, took a sort of windy road to get here. Premiering in 2016 at the Williamstown Theatre Festival in Massachusetts, the play soon found its way to New York, where it was produced by the Manhattan Theatre Club at New York City Center. Meanwhile, Andrea Kovich, Sound Theatre Dramaturg and this production’s Assistant Director, came across the show while working at the La Jolla Playhouse and eyed Cost of Living for an eventual Seattle premiere. Fast forward to 2020 and a Seattle opening seemed like it was going to happen, until it didn’t, yet another theatrical victim of the Covid pandemic. Post Covid, it made its way back to New York, hitting the Broadway stage for forty performances in late 2022, the result of which was a number of Tony nominations and a plethora of critical acclaim. Having closed on Broadway, Cost of Living is now able to and is making that long awaited Seattle debut, in a production that marks the first time it's being performed with a new pair of actors in the roles of Ani and John, the disabled characters in the show.

The show is presented as a layered series of contrasts, from the couples themselves, to the situations they’re facing, and even into how the performances are done. The first couple, Eddie and Ani, are recently separated. Ani’s disability comes as a result of an accident, after which her estranged husband Eddie steps in and volunteers to help his wife with her care. There’s so much that Ani is coping with, though, from the loss of her marriage, to the loss of her mobility and the realization that the rest of her life is going to look generally as it is, and her challenge is to get some sort of fulfillment out of it, while at the same time having to deal with so much that has been taken away from her. When Eddie steps back into her life, it opens up a whole new world of conflict for Ani. Why is Eddie all of a sudden wanting to be there for her, and if he was there to this extent prior to the accident, what stage would their marriage be in?. It’s a study in human behavior that transcends the couple’s situation, and that complexity underlies the beauty of this play. Drew Hobson is Eddie and Teal Sherer is Ani in this production and they are both excellent, especially together. Their chemistry is clear, Drew and Teal are extremely comfortable together, and they handle their intimate scenes with a tenderness that’s not easy to attain. Intimacy Director Jasmine Lomax deserves a lot of credit for these interactions appearing so natural, but it’s also the actors that need to carry them out. Drew and Teal do this masterfully. One last thing of note with this first couple. I’m impressed with how they so accurately capture the geographic personas of their characters. The play is set in New Jersey, and both Drew and Teal encapsulate all of these aspects, from mannerisms and accents, to their passionate natures. Each of their scenes are engaging, heartfelt, and true. Well done.

On the other side of the stage, literally, as both stories are told through a series of vignettes, scenes alternating between the two couples, are Jess and John. John is a well to do, highly educated, and extremely arrogant man, recent to living on his own and in search of a caretaker to help him while he deals with the challenges of living with cerebral palsy, a contrast to Ani’s disability that was so suddenly thrust upon her. John’s challenges are more a part of him, and something he’s been dealing with for much longer, though now he’s attempting to do it more independently. Enter Jess, whose employment prior to John has consisted of holding down multiple positions at a variety of bars, and taking other odd jobs, just to make ends meet. Looking for a better opportunity, Jess approaches John, who meets her with a high level of hesitation. Jess eventually does convince John to let her be his caregiver and what follows is an exploration of their relationship together and the breaking down of walls on both sides, all while tackling a number of issues that go beyond just a disabled individual and a caregiver, each explored with varying levels of subtlety, including political correctness, preconceived notions, judgments, and stereotypes, and the socio-economic gap in America that is so prevalent.

The scenes between Jess and John, played by Viviana Garza and Gerald Isaac Waters respectively, skew a bit slower, and less passionately delivered than those between Eddie and Ani. That’s part of the contrast of this show, though. Depicting someone living with cerebral palsy is certainly different than doing the same for someone who is disabled more suddenly as the result of an accident. Movements are slower and the acting more methodical and deliberate. Gerald does a very nice job here, though by the nature of the role, the physical interactions between his John and Viviana’s Jess seem long, affecting the overall pace of their scenes together. The argument can be made that there’s a bit of superfluous dialogue in the Eddie/Ani scenes, that pared back could shorten the overall length of the show, which runs at two hours with no intermission, while the opposite can be said for some of the scenes between Jess and John. Here, the lack of dialogue during some of the physical parts of their scenes make them seem longer, as does the quietness of the actors’ delivery. There’s a balance that director Teresa Thuman needs to strike, between representing these relationships accurately and with the humanity that she’s trying to capture, and pacing the show to keep the audience engaged. More times than not, she does it well, though the few times the balance is missed, it seems a tad tedious.

A show like this, staging a cast of only four, might seem like it should be simple to put together and present, but with the plethora of issues that Cost of Living covers, and the need to depict the individual situations accurately, a lot of coordination is needed to make sure that all of the moving pieces fit together and fit well. Teresa Thuman has assembled excellent creative and technical teams to help present this show, and under her watch they’ve all come together to produce something that is both provocative and smart. This includes set and prop design (Bryan Boyd and Jessamyn Bateman-Iino), that together provide a realism to each of the scenes, with complicated and functional furniture and props needed to support the storytelling. Marianna de Fazio’s work with dialects helps to bring out the true New Jersey from Eddie and Ani, and I’ve already discussed Jasmine Lomax’s contributions with her work as Intimacy Director, helping the actors confidently navigate the intensely close and physical aspects of their relationships. Add to this lighting (Ali Rahmn), sound (Max Sarkowski) and costumes (Doris Black), plus the complex work of stage hands (Sierra Tinhof) and crew, and the result is a production that comes together very well to present complex stories and does it in a way that makes it look easy. Kudos as well to Teresa for assembling an ultra diverse cast, each of whom are able to bring their own experiences to these roles and show through their performances that not only is there room for disabled, BIPOC, and queer actors on stage in Seattle, there are roles that allow them to excel.

Cost of Living is a layered and complex look at the human condition as told through its depiction of two separate disabled individuals and their caregivers. It’s quite heavy at times, but through its poignancy and passion, this show tackles a number of important issues and begs its audience to contemplate their own relationships and preconceived attitudes and notions.

Cost of Living runs onstage at 12th Avenue Arts in Seattle through July 1. Presented by Sound Theatre Company, it is also being streamed for those who don’t have the ability to attend in person. For more information about the show, tickets, and to stream the production, visit https://soundtheatrecompany.org/. Note that patrons attending in person must be masked while in the theatre space.

Photo credit: Nikeesha Gooding