Theatre: Cost of Living
Hampstead Theatre, London NW3 (020-7722 9301). Until 9 March Running time: 1hr 45mins ★★★
This Pulitzer Prize-winning play from the Polish-american playwright Martyna Majok is a delicate, moving study in loneliness, said Paul Taylor in The Independent. It gathers together four characters “of a type we rarely encounter on the stage”: disabled people and their carers. In separate stories that eventually intersect, we first meet the “gloriously foul-mouthed” Ani, a woman who has been left quadriplegic following a road accident, and her estranged husband, Eddie, a truck driver, who is caring for her. In the other strand, wealthy PHD student John, who has cerebral palsy, takes on an impoverished young graduate, Jess, as his carer. The moving play built out of these encounters contains moments of uncommon beauty. The scene in which Eddie slowly gives Ani a bath while dreamy piano music by Satie plays on the radio is “one of the most tender and sensual things that I have seen”.
Majok’s play is one of those “excessively worthy naturalistic dramas” that win American prizes, but don’t necessarily travel well, said Andrzej Lukowski in Time Out. At its best, it’s a “beautifully tender thing”, but alas, in the end it “prefers to drift elegantly rather than grab you by the throat”. I wanted to love it, said Dominic Cavendish in The Daily Telegraph – not least because its excellent director, Edward Hall, is bowing out as the boss of Hampstead Theatre, and we have him to thank for transforming the theatre’s fortunes over the past ten years. But while the play is coherent, competent, “wistfully touching” in parts and droll in others, it is pretty “pedestrian” stuff when compared to Pulitzer-winning greats of yore – Miller, O’neill, Williams.
What makes the evening is the stunning acting, said Sarah Crompton on What’s On Stage. Both Katy Sullivan, the US ex-paralympian who plays Ani, and Jack Hunter, as John, are themselves disabled – and both are “magnificent” actors. Each plays their role with such grace and “truthfulness”, it’s hard to imagine non-disabled actors in these, or similar, parts in the future. As Jess, Emily Barber “finely suggests a woman on the edge”. And Adrian Lester is “simply astounding” as Eddie – “every pain and each joy stamped across his face and directly into your heart”.