Cost of Living
Reviewed by Dana Martin
The Fountain Theatre
Through December 16
RECOMMENDED
The Fountain Theatre has its finger on the pulse of new and exciting American theatre. Cost of Living, Martyna Majok’s 2018 Pulitzer Prize winning play, explores the journey toward human connection and survival. Intimate and unsentimental, it examines the struggles and intimacies of caregiving while implying that not all handicaps are physical.
The playwright tells two stories. Eddie (Felix Solis) and Ani (Katy Sullivan) are a separated couple. Ani recently lost both legs in a car accident that has left her paralyzed. Eddie, an out-of-work truck driver, has returned to provide support, and perhaps rekindle their broken relationship. Ani’s having none of it — instead, she punishes Eddie at every turn and shuts down his offers of help. Slowly, though, they get to know one another once again, and the long history of their relationship unfolds.
A more formal relationship exists between John (Tobias Forrest), a wealthy PhD student with cerebral palsy and his new care taker Jess (Xochitl Romero), a guarded young woman who desperately needs the work. The two beautifully navigate the uncertain waters of shared intimacy and vulnerability until the economic and racial disparity between them comes into sharp focus.
Solis’s Eddie is a broken man who’s visceral pain courses through every fiber of his being. It’s what he doesn’t say that will break your heart. Katy Sullivan is outstanding as the crass, outspoken and inwardly anguished Ani. The connection between these two actors is electric. Xochitl Romero is fascinating as Jess, whose vulnerability seeps through the slow erosion of her tough-as-nails exterior. Jess is the play’s least developed character, yet perhaps the most intriguing. Tobias Forrest’s John is smug, self-centered, straightforward.
Director John Vreeke sets the pace a hair faster than necessary, as there’s so much information, pain and history in the moments that linger. Otherwise, the staging is appropriately sparse and the production completely engaging. Scenic designer Tom Buderwitz preserves a mostly empty playing space that transforms into two separate bathrooms. Shon LeBlanc’s costume design helps to clarify the narrative’s many jumps forward and backward in time.
Cost of Living manages to depict humanity at its most vulnerable. None of the characters are victims, nor do they elicit sympathy of any sort. They’re flawed, struggling, trying their best to get by and take care of those they love. They struggle to create meaningful, dignified connections with one other but mostly remain lonely. It’s deeply, hauntingly familiar.
Fountain Theatre, 5060 Fountain Ave., East Hollywood; Mon., Fri.-Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun., 2 p.m.; through Dec. 16. (323) 663-1525 or fountaintheatre.com. Running time: one hour and 40 minutes with no intermission.
