Scribd Logo

Language

Upload

Welcome to Scribd!

Enjoy millions of ebooks, audiobooks, magazines, and more, with a free trial

Only $9.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

Cost of Living (TCG Edition)
Cost of Living (TCG Edition)
Cost of Living (TCG Edition)
Ebook169 pages1 hour

Cost of Living (TCG Edition)

By Martyna Majok

4.5/5

()

Read preview

About this ebook

Written by Scribd Editors

An achingly human and particularly humorous play that invites the audience to analyze their own perceptions of privilege and human connection through the stories of two couples ill-suited for managing what life throws at them. Explore an engaging story which highlights the forces that bring people together and the realities of living with physical disabilities.

Unemployed truck driver Eddie never expected to take on the role of caregiver for his estranged ex-wife, Ani. Life together was tough enough before the car accident. Under-qualified and nearly homeless Jess applies for yet another job to help make ends meet, and ends up as the personal caregiver for a wealthy and arrogant graduate student named John, who has cerebral palsy. Their stories converge in the meeting of two strangers in an empty apartment in New Jersey.

Written by playwright Martyna Majok and first premiered in Williamstown, Massachusetts at the Williamstown Theatre Festival in June 2016. A multiple award-winning play, accolades including: Pulitzer Prize for Drama, 2018; Edgerton New Play Prize, 2016; Jean Kennedy Smith Prize, The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, 2016; Women's Invitational, Ashland New Plays Festival, 2016; NYTimes' Critics' Pick.

LanguageEnglish
PublisherTheatre Communications Group
Release dateOct 23, 2018
ISBN9781559369107
Cost of Living (TCG Edition)
Read preview

Related to Cost of Living (TCG Edition)

Related ebooks

Related podcast episodes

Related articles

Related categories

Reviews for Cost of Living (TCG Edition)

4.5/5

21 ratings5 reviews

What did you think?

Tap to rate

Review must be at least 10 words

  • 5/5
    Beautifully written and an absolute feast for actors. Definitely will seek more work from Martyna Majok
  • 5/5
    One of the best plays I've read in ages. Smart, funny, tragic, complex, but above all deeply, authentically humane.
  • 5/5
    Just a stunning play that deserved the Pulitzer. Beautiful writing and characters
  • 4/5
    The books are totally deserving. I loved them, and I think they are must read. If you have some great stories like this one, you can publish it on Novel Star, just submit your story to hardy@novelstar.top or joye@novelstar.top
  • 5/5
    Breathtaking and devastating. This play deserves every award it got.

Book preview

Cost of Living (TCG Edition) - Martyna Majok

Prologue

An empty space. An empty stage. That is, a bar in December.

Specifically, St. Mazie’s bar in post-Bloomberg Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

One might call it a hipster bar.

A man. Eddie Torres. An unemployed truck driver. He looks out of place here.

Eddie Torres is a man who understands that self-pity and moping are privileges for people who, in their lives, have friends and family who unconditionally love them and will listen to their shit. Anything he tells you, he hopes will be entertaining or funny or interesting because he knows you’re not obligated to stay and listen to him. When he slips into sadness, he bounces back fast. He would have made a great uncle.

He nurses a glass of seltzer.

EDDIE

The shit that happens is not to be understood.

That’s from the Bible.

The shit that happens to you is Not To Be Understood.

So, see, this fucked me up a little when one day comes this call from Columbia Presbyterian. Is this Mister Torres? There’s been a complication. I’m forty-nine and I’ve done nothin but love the fuck outta this woman for two decades and a year almost. Nothin.

Who deserves that?

And a week from her birthday. Seven days.

We were gonna go to Maine. For her birthday.

See the trees.

I leave the lights on now, every room.

Smoke signal: I’m still here.

Holidays are hard.

Christmas next week—that’s gonna be hard.

But listen to me holy shit the GLOOM. Get a drink. On me. Made a promise to myself. A penalty. I start talkin gloom, I get it in the WALLET. Lemme buy you a drink. What do you want? Order what you want, I’m payin. This place is my fuckin SWEAR jar.

Order what you want. Go ahead.

Me myself personally, I’m off it. That first day you wake up to find you are not in a pool of some kinda liquid, my friend? Vomit, say, or piss? That day? That day is a beautiful fuckin gift upon yer life, man. You are grateful for that day. And you are ready.

That day’s the day it’s all gonna change.

Signs are real.

This I know cuz I used to drive trucks. Cross-country. Loved it. Loved every aspect of the job. The scenery. Every aspect. The fuckin scenery. Utah? Jesus H, man. Utah’s gorgeous and no one even knows!

But then I got popped for a DUI. In a car. Blocks from home.

Lost my CDL.

Shit’s Creek.

So I got the memories. And some unemployment.

That life is good for people. I was thankful for every day they ain’t invented yet the trucker-robots. That life is good. The road.

Sky. The scenery.

Except the loneliness.

Except in the case of all the, y’know, loneliness.

This was what my wife was good for.

Not that this was the only thing.

But everyone what’s married there’s, y’know, the fuuuuck days.

Like, fuuuuck what did I do. What did I actually fuckin do here.

Cuz, y’know, you married a person. And a person’s gonna be a person even if they’re married.

That’s a lesson. That’s a lesson for yer LIFE right there.

But still I

I still

still loved her.

She would text me. On the road.

At night. In

Enjoying the preview?
Page 1 of 1