Cost of Living (TCG Edition)

Martyna Majok

• Publisher: Theatre Communications Group
• Year: 2018
• eBook ISBN: 9781559369107
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: American Drama
• Index: Literature

“Immensely haunting… The first of many great things about Martyna Majok’s Cost of Living… is the way it slams the door on uplifting stereotypes… Ms. Majok has engineered her plot to lead naturally to moments of intense and complicated pungency… If you don’t find yourself in someone in Cost of Living, you’re not looking.” —Jesse Green, New York Times

Winner of the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, Cost of Living deftly challenges the typical perceptions of those living with disabilities and delves deep into the ways class, race, nationality, and wealth can create gulfs between people, even as they long for the ability to connect. Eddie, an unemployed truck driver, and his estranged ex-wife, Ani, find themselves unexpectedly reunited after a terrible accident leaves her quadriplegic. John, a brilliant PhD student with cerebral palsy, hires Jess, a first-generation recent graduate who has fallen on desperate times, as his new aide.

Two

Early September.

It’s raining outside.

A different accessible apartment. In Jersey City, New Jersey. A largely empty one, in transition and under-loved.

A woman enters. Ani.

She is in a wheelchair. Severe incomplete spinal cord injury.

Quadriplegic. Though some of the fingers of one hand are partially functioning.

Ani is a woman whose world has not extended very far beyond North Jersey and just you try to say something to her and watch what happens. She has her own ways and she is fine with those ways and those that do not agree don’t need to stick around—as many haven’t. She can seem brusque or intense to some people. A cat that resists being pet. Until it wants to be.

Eddie enters with her, holding an umbrella over her. Then remembers the umbrella:

EDDIE

Oh shit.

Bad luck.

(Eddie closes the umbrella. Sets it aside.

Their interactions used to have ease. Eddie muscles it now.)

So this is yer new …

(He is surprised at the place. Takes it in.)

Ani.

You need to get some color in here. (The worst) This beige? No. Feel like I’m walkin into a paper bag. You could get some kinda yellow in here. Some baby blue, some yellow. Good for emotions. I read that. It’s therapy. Colors work on yer feelings. Blue’s for stress, like—relief. Red’s for passion. And yellow I dunno but it’s yellow.

Ask yer nurses. Watch. They’ll tell you. Shit’s science.

ANI

(Bone dry) I thought I’d try yoga.

Fer my emotions.

EDDIE

… Can you // do—?

ANI

NO.

EDDIE

Okay.

(He looks around for something helpful to do.)

ANI

What’re you doin // here—?

EDDIE

(Looking for tasks) OkayOkayOkay. Pillow! Got yer pillow here.

(He tries to put it somewhere behind her head or back. Sees she’s strapped in all over …)

I’ma just fluff THAT.

(… Fluffs and sets the pillow aside.)

Okay. Blanket. Just blanket you with THAT.

(He tucks a blanket around her chair.)

You lose weight?

…

I will punch myself later for that. On yer behalf.

Or—Y’know what:

(He takes her paralyzed arm.

She’s confused at what’s going on at first but has no control over it.

Oh no. Is he really doing this?

He is. He’s really doing this. She can’t believe he’s doing this.

He punches himself with her paralyzed hand.

She doesn’t look happy.

He sees her face, not looking happy.

And he awkwardly puts her hand back down by her side.)

ANI

The fuck is wrong // with you?

EDDIE

I don’t know.

ANI

Strap it back in!

EDDIE

Sorry sorry.

(He straps her wrist back on the arm of the chair.)

ANI

Flatten it out.

EDDIE

What?

ANI

My fingers, you gotta—Flatten // o...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Prologue
• One
• Two
• Three
• Four
• Five
• Six
• Seven
• Eight
• Nine, or Epilogue