Told with deft humour and enormous heart, Sydney Theatre Company and Queensland Theatre presents the Australian Premiere of the Pulitzer Prize-winning, Tony-nominated Broadway smash-hit, Cost of Living by Martyna Majok.
Written by former carer turned playwright, Martyna Majok draws on her lived experience as she invites audiences into the intimate spaces of two relationships.
Ani, a woman with an acquired disability, reconnects with her estranged husband Eddie who is battling feelings of guilt and loneliness. John, a wealthy Princeton student with cerebral palsy, hires Jess, a woman juggling multiple jobs just to stay afloat, as his carer.
Through a series of stirring vignettes told with enormous heart, Majok teases out the nuanced power dynamics, pathos and humour of these characters’ lives, painting a vivid portrait of austerity in the twenty-first century.
Priscilla Jackman (RBG: Of Many, One) and internationally acclaimed multidisciplinary artist Dan Daw (The Dan Daw Show) direct this Australian premiere production of one of the best pieces of new writing to emerge from the US in the last decade.
Co-director and performer Daw leads an exceptional cast including Philip Quast (STC’s Do Not Go Gentle), Kate Hood (Malthouse Theatre’s The Real and Imagined History of the Elephant Man), and Zoe de Plevitz (Netflix’s Boy Swallows Universe) in a beautifully rendered four-hander about our need to care, or be cared for, no matter the distance that age, race and disability might place between us.
“The kind of theatre that imprints on the body and lives in your bones” – Variety
Co-Directors: Priscilla Jackman, Dan Daw | Featuring: Dan Daw, Kate Hood, Zoe de Plevitz, Philip Quast | Set & Costume Designer: Michael Scott-Mitchell | Lighting Designer: John Rayment | Composer & Sound Designer: Guy Webster | Movement & Intimacy Coach: NJ Price | Dialect Coach: Gabrielle Rogers | Writer: Martyna Majok
Cost of Living
Bille Brown Theatre – Queensland Theatre, 78 Montague Road, South Brisbane
Season continues to 13 July 2024
Information and Bookings: www.queenslandtheatre.com.au
Wharf 1 Theatre – Wharf 4/5, 15 Hickson Road, Walsh Bay (Sydney)
Season: 18 July – 18 August 2024
Information and Bookings: www.sydneytheatre.com.au
Image: Zoe de Plevitz and Dan Daw in Cost of Living – photo by Morgan Roberts