Frank Theatre introduced #TCTheater to Polish-American playwright Martyna Majok's work with their excellent production of
Ironbound in 2024 (
a nominee for a Twin Cities Theater Bloggers Award for best play), followed by
Sanctuary City earlier this year, which
Theatre in the Round also produced a few months later. Now, thanks to
Full Circle Theater, we finally get to see her 2018 Pulitzer Prize-winning play
Cost of Living. All of her plays (at least those I've seen) deal with the immigrant experience, classism, the struggles of average Americans, and the failure of the American Dream.
Cost of Living does this through the stories of two disabled characters and their caregivers, with a raw and unflinching look at the lives that they lead. The good news is Full Circle's production, in the intimate 825 Arts on University in St. Paul, is excellent; the bad news is they only have eight performances (after a week of community performances), half of which are over. So if you would like to see the excellent regional premiere of this funny, moving, surprising, thought-provoking play -
act fast!
The play features two seemingly separate stories, that intersect in the final scene in a surprising and touching way. We first meet Eddie, whose estranged wife Ani was recently in an accident that left her a quadriplegic. She has her own place now, and nurses to care for her, but Eddie is unemployed and a bit driftless, so asks if he can help out with her caregiving. The two have tons of baggage from twenty years of marriage, including addiction and adultery, so this road does not go smoothly. Their scenes alternate with those of John, a graduate student with cerebral palsy who hires Jess to help him shave, shower, and dress every morning. Jess is a recent Princeton graduate, but works multiple jobs to send money home to her mother. The two form a connection, that hints at the possibility of something more. Each story has an arc, but not an ending or a conclusion. These characters lives will go on beyond the brief time we spent with them, leaving us richer for having known them.
Full Circle's Artistic Director Shá Cage directs the piece and does well with the time, location, and tone shifts. The play is very funny at times, absolutely devastating at other times. One of the joys of Majok's writing is that her characters talk like real people talk - unfinished sentences, interrupting each other, trailing off into silence. And they're all beautifully and clearly drawn, flawed and messy and relatable. This is especially refreshing to see with the disabled characters - they're not pitied, or made out to be heroes, they're portrayed as the complicated and layered humans that we all are. And this cast embodies them beautifully. Rich Remedios is so great as Eddie. He opens the play with a long monologue delivered directly to the audience, seemingly at one person in the audience (serving as a fellow bar-goer), that immediately draws us into his story. Houa Moua is fantastic as Ani, raw, real, emotional, and dryly funny. The show I attended was a planned understudy night, so I saw understudies Carmen Multz and Tolu Ekisola playing the roles of John and Jess. You'd never know they were understudies, they seemed completely comfortable in these roles with a nice rapport between them, both very endearing.
This was my second time at 825 Arts, which is a newish black box space. Last time I was there, there were no risers in the audience or elevated stage, which made sightlines challenging. But for this production they turned the performance area 90 degrees and added risers, making it much easier to see everything. Each story takes place on one side of the stage - John's clean and modern apartment with an elevated enclosed area serving as the bathroom and shower which is important to the story, and Ani's homey apartment with a comfy pull-out couch, and walls that seem to be breaking at the seams. Intermission scene change brings us into Eddie's packed up apartment with boxes everywhere. Costumes are casual wear that feels appropriate to each character, including shirts that open in the back and are easier to put on. (Scenic design by Jacqulin Stauder, props design by Rene'e Gonzales, costume design by Caroline A. Zaltron.)
Director Shá Cage sums up the play in a note in the program, and I agree: "Cost of Living illuminates issues of class, gender, economics, interdependency, loneliness, race, and struggle with a healthy dose of wit, bite, and so much heart!"
