David Zayas (left) and Katy Sullivan star in "Price of Dwelling" on Broadway.
Jeremy Daniel
The center of Martyna Majok’s absorbing play “Price of Dwelling,” which opened on Broadway Monday evening on the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre, come from how forcefully the present pushes again in opposition to our expectations for a narrative like this one.
It’s a drama, partially, about two Princeton, New Jersey residents with disabilities. One, Ani (Katy Sullivan), misplaced each her legs and had her spinal twine shattered in a automotive accident; the opposite, John (Gregg Mozgala), is a twenty-something with cerebral palsy. Lesser works would deal with these characters as automated saints and discuss all the way down to them. They’d go full-bore “Gray’s Anatomy.” Not Majok’s.
COST OF LIVING
1 hour and 40 minutes with no intermission. On the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre, 261 West forty seventh Avenue.
John, who hires Jess (Kara Younger) to be his new caretaker, for instance, is sort of an ass. When he interviews her and he or she says she attended Princeton, he vocally doubts that she graduated and even actually went to the college after which brags about himself having gone to Harvard. (It’s true. All Harvard grads do that always.)
You possibly can inform Jess is concerned by her future boss’ superior tone, as are we, however she wants the job. She is the daughter of immigrants who already works as a bartender at evening, and is struggling to get by on ideas and shift pay alone.
As the times go by, the 2 develop a candy rapport, even when his typically classist humorousness sticks round. Jess, in the meantime, seems to love spending her time on this wealthy man’s stylish house — perhaps she’s grown keen on him, or perhaps it’s all an act.
Mozgala performs John, who’s by no means 100% an excellent man, with a zest for dialog that retains us on his aspect. He additionally experiences huge ache in visceral moments.
Ani, in the meantime, is sorted by her soft-spoken husband she is separated from named Eddie (David Zayas), who's wracked with guilt for leaving her for one more girl. Ani is foul-mouthed and brassy, and longs — with a gritted-teeth trendy reservedness — for her previous life.
Sullivan, particularly, has a palpable understanding of working-class individuals exterior of big cities that’s deeply touching and lacks condescension. When Ani says, “I believe I’m gonna return to work. In a number of months. See Janey. Everybody,” a once-simple job feels like a faraway dream.
She begins to resent Eddie much less, and the pair have the play’s most transcendent scene — as Ani bathes within the tub and Erik Satie’s “Gnossiennes No. 3” performs. It’s a haunting, enveloping tune, for those who’ve by no means heard it earlier than, and Majok and director Jo Bonney give us an unusually piercing sensory expertise for the stuffy Friedman.
If most of “Price of Dwelling” is invigorating for not leaning on simple solutions or stereotypical, Hallmark Channel characters, the ending goals to nourish audiences in a extra conventional method we’ve turn into accustomed to. And it does. Nonetheless, in zig-zagging away from well-tread paths, Majok arrives at a vacation spot we hadn’t deliberate to go to, however are happy to be at nonetheless.
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