A Pair of Pairs. A Pair of Wheelchairs.

Jamie Rizzo as John and Valentina Fittipaldi as Jess in Renaissance Theaterworks' COST OF LIVING. Photo by Ross Zentner

I was fortunate enough to be able to attend the final preview performance of the midwest premiere of playwright Martyna Majok’s Cost of Living. The show makes its local debut in a remarkably vivid Renaissance Theaterworks production. Two pairs of people deal with the complexities of human connection in the course of two hours on an intimate stage. Director Ben Raanan shepherds the dramatic energies through alternating scenes between the two pairs in a deeply moving emotional drama.


Bryant Bentley and Regan Linton are an estranged couple who struggle to find some common ground in the face of tragedy. Bentley is quite charming as Eddie--a trucker who is turning his life around. Majok’s script arms him some of the sharpest lines in the script. He’s matched in grit and wit by his wheelchair-bound wife Ani. She’s been through hell. Thanks to Eddie, she’s going to be through a bit more before things can have a chance to turn around for her. Linton carves together a gruff appeal of her own as Ani tolerates the company of a man she has not spent much time with in recent months. Raanan has helped Bentley and Linton climb their way through some very tricky emotional territory between the two characters. The tragedy that binds the two of them is beautifully crushing on a deep emotional level.


Jamie Rizzo and Valentina Fittipaldi captivatingly fill their half of the two-hour drama as John and Jess. John is a man suffering from neuromuscular challenges that leave him largely wheelchair bound as well. As the play opens, John is looking to hire Jess as a personal aid to help him with the arduous tasks of shaving, showering and so on. Fittipaldi and Rizzo carefully manage the dauntingly complex relations between John and Jess. The unlikely pairing of a wealthy man and his financially challenged aid hit the stage with a deeply engaging emotionality. Fittipaldi is crushingly endearing as a woman who has been through far too much to be able to casually trust anyone. Her performance might be one of the most memorable performances of the whole season thus far. Fittipaldi makes clever and beautiful use of the chance to deliver great complexity in a wide spectrum of silences in and around a charmingly pensive performance.


The alternation between the two different stories sometimes felt a bit interruptive. Just as things were really developing between Eddie and Ani, Majok jumps over to Jess and John. Jess is such a deeply interesting character for me...and Fittipaldi was so good at bringing her to the stage that I found myself taking a bit more time to warm-up to the perfectly charming gruffness of relations between Bentley and Linton. The two stories inevitably fuse at the end of the drama’s two hours onstage. It’s a very touching end to the whole thing, but I wish I would have been able to focus a bit more on things with Eddie and Ani.


Renaissance Theaterworks’ production of Cost of Living runs through Feb. 12 at the theatre space on 255 S Water St. For ticket reservations and more, visit Renaissance online.
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