I applaud the playwright Martina Majok for giving us the chance to see the side of the caregivers of disabled people in COST OF LIVING, which was originally produced few years back Off Broadway and now has moved on Broadway. It is a topic that is seldom talked about. There are different facets of this issue and she has shown us one of them. There could be so many more viewpoints to explore for sure.
The play is about two pairs, one a person with disability and the other one is the caregiver. The first pair is John (Gregg Mozgala) and Jess (Kara young). John is smart and rich but he needs someone to help him with his daily tasks such as shaving, bathing because he is wheelchair bound due to his cerebral palsy. The second pair is between Ani (Katy Sullivan) and Eddie (David Zayas). This pair has money struggles and they are husband and wife but has separated and Ani being disabled made it much worse. It is definitely entertaining but it seems it is lacking something . The disabled characters feels lacking in depth of character or should I say they were not given the chance. Not enough has happened in the play to empathize more with them aside from them having a physical disability. But kudos to Gregg and Katy as their acting compensated for the script. I would have wanted to know more about them as well. The final scene where Jess and Eddie connect to tie up the whole play is a bit forced. But all in all, Martina was able to balance drama and comedy for an entertaining time at the theater.
“As for my nudity review, Gregg Mozgala who plays the rich disabled person has a scene where Kara has to shower him of course fully nude. This scene was at least 5 minutes (by my count) and we get to see Gregg’s nice body in full view. He has moderate amount of body hair, he has a circumcised cock and well trimmed bush, nice ass.
The understudy for Gregg is Erick Betancourt who looks adorable as well. He is in TV shows BLUE BLOODS and NEW AMSTERDAM. He did Off Broadway shows: Our Lady of 121st Street (Signature Theatre Off-Broadway Production, 2018) and Jesus Hopped the ‘A’ Train (New York Off-Broadway Revival Production, 2017).
I wonder if anyone knows if he has a scheduled dates of performance so maybe I can watch it again when Erick performs.
P.S. When I saw the show, it is only half full. Support this show so it does not close soon.
Thanks for the review, does it matter where you sit to get the best view?
The shower is on stage left which is audience right, just avoid the extreme audience left and extreme audience right and I think it is just fine. The scene is very well lit.
Looks like they extended this for another week, which is a little surprising since when I saw it the mezzanine was less than half full. Glad for the cast though. The view from the mezzanine was pretty good, further away than the orchestra of course but you could clearly see everything during the shower scene with no obstruction!