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Alison Stewart: This is All Of It on WNYC. I'm Alison Stewart, and we'll close out this hour of conversations with Tony nominees by looking at Cost of Living by Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Martyna Majok. A show about how scary it can be when humans allow themselves to be vulnerable and to acknowledge that sometimes we truly need one another. Take the characters of Eddie and Ani. Eddie is a former truck driver who struggled with alcoholism and lost his license. He's played by David Zayas. Eddie is separated from his wife Ani, played by actor and Paralympic athlete Katy Sullivan.

Ani is coming to grips with her new reality after a car accident has paralyzed her, necessitating a wheelchair and near-constant care. Eddie wants to help her. Ani at first wants nothing to do with it. Both actors are nominated for Tonys this year. Then there's Jess and John. John is a wealthy, hilariously, snooty Princeton grad student. He has cerebral palsy and is looking for a homemade. He's played by Gregg Mozgala. Tony-nominee Kara Young plays Jess, who gets the job. She's a Princeton grad with no family in the States, who works nights as a bartender and honestly is not making enough money to get by.

What starts out as just a gig might turn out to be something else. The New York Times said in its review of the play, "It readily breaks your heart, drags you through hurt, and then kisses you on the forehead, sending you off with a laugh." Cost of Living was first staged in New York in 2017. Katy and Gregg originated their roles and from October through November of last year reprised them on Broadway for the first time.

When we first talked about it on the show, I spoke with Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Martyna Majok and actors Katy Sullivan and David Zayas, who are both nominated for Tonys. I began by asking Martyna what the original seed idea was for this play.

Martyna Majok: I had just moved to New York after grad school, and it was a year of a lot of economic insecurity. I had 13 apartments in my first year in New York. I was sublet hopping because I didn't have enough money for a security deposit. My second sublet had bedbugs. I got hazed by the city for trying to pursue my dreams and be a playwright. At the same time, I had also lost a dear family member, the man who was basically like my father in Poland.

I was born in Poland, and my whole family is still there. I didn't have enough money to be with him and see him at the end of his life, and then to be at his funeral. I was also afraid to go to know that then it would be real. It was a year of grief and a lot of instability and insecurity. The play began one night after I got fired from a bartending job because they thought I had stolen $100, which I did not, but I wish I did anyways. I got fired for it anyways.

I had come home to my third sublet that year. It was a blizzardy January night, and the voice of Eddie Torres came to me and I started writing this monologue for this man who goes to a bar thinking he got a text from his deceased wife. It came out of grief. It came out of wanting to reach out to other people during a time that I was desperately alone and in need. This may sound like it's so deep, dark, but it's actually really funny. [chuckles]

Alison Stewart: The show opens, David, with that monologue for your character, Eddie, in this bar talking about his wife, Ani, who we learned has died. That is a long opening monologue. It really sets the tone for the rest of the play. What did you think when you first read that monologue, David?

David Zayas: Well, when I first read the monologue, I was like, "Wow, I have to do this. This is such a beautiful, expressive-- and it goes to different sections." Then I realized I have to actually learn it. It was challenging to just try to capture the moment-to-moment ideas of what Eddie is trying to tell this patron in the bar. It not only sets up the play for the audience, it sets up the play for me. It just opens the door for what's going to happen afterwards in the past and then bringing it back to present time.

It's one of those monologues. It's to be the longest monologue I've ever had to do in a play but it's beautiful. It's blue-collar-ish poetic in many ways. It's I feel like how this character thinks, the faith of his character, and also the fact that he's also dealing with his flaws and all the mistakes he's made in his life.

Alison Stewart: We have a little bit of the monologue that we want to play for folks. This is from Cost of Living.

Eddie: You married a person and a person is going to be a person even if they're married. That's a lesson. [laughter] That's a lesson for your life right there. But still I, I still, still loved her. She would text me on the road at night in motels which alone can be, can drum up certain feelings. That's why there's Bibles in motels. [laughter] We're all of us in motels on the road to somewhere we ain't at yet and that makes us feel feelings.

Roads are dark and America's long. And I mean, this wasn't poetry, these texts. This wasn't like, you know, poetry. [laughter] Thinking of you, house things, your check came today, off to bed, good night. The little buzz in my pocket on the nightstand, that's the rope that gets tossed down to you at the bottom of that well when the thoughts come. The thoughts, that loneliness.

The texts, they're like, "Climb on up out of there. Get up out of those thoughts because I'm thinking of you." Truckers got wild imaginations and lots of time to think. Just not much time to do much with all we've been thinking, except we don't take time at all and [unintelligible 00:07:07]. Salud, na zdorovie. She taught me that.

Alison Stewart: That's David Zayas from Cost of Living. Katy, I want to bring you into this conversation. We can hear that Eddie is charming, he's affable. Ani wants nothing to do with him at the beginning of the play. Like seriously, why? Why not? Ani is very clear. She's in her rehabilitation phase. She just doesn't want to deal with him. Initially, why doesn't she want Eddie to come back and help her out? Then, we're not giving too much away, ultimately, they work something out.

Katy Sullivan: Yes. I think it's a really challenging thing to follow up, showing up on stage after the entire audience has fallen in love with this man. [laughs] There is just the best and so funny and charming and whatever, and my character's like, "Get out." [laughter] That is a very hard thing to overcome as a character. I think she wins them over eventually, but no, I think there's a certain amount of pride in feeling like he has broken her heart, but I think they broke each other's hearts, honestly.

It's a challenging thing to be in a relationship with people who have substance abuse struggles that they are falling in and out of sobriety. Ultimately, I think that is the crack that really started to sever their relationship. It didn't help that he was seeing someone else at one point. One of the things that is lovely about Ani is how tough she is, but she's incredibly vulnerable and soft on the inside. She's a pile of goo on the inside. She just has this really hard exterior shell.

Alison Stewart: I want to ask Katy and David about the worlds you come from. David, you were a police officer for a long time. 15 years or so?

David Zayas: 15 years, yes.

Alison Stewart: Wow. When and where did you make the transition to acting?

David Zayas: I grew up in the South Bronx and I always wanted in the back of my mind watching movies say, "I want to do this." I didn't come from an autistic family. It was mostly a lot of blue-collar. My dad was a sanitation man, and he was always pushing me to do something practical like taking the fireman test or the police test. I did all of that, and then after high school, I joined the Air Force.

I got a little confidence in the Air Force and figured out what I wanted to do, but when I left the Air Force, I was with two kids already. I was young and I needed a job. The police department called me, and so I kind of put all my needs for being an actor way in the back, in file. Then eight years into it, I said, "I'm not getting any younger. I'm going to actually go for this and see what happens." I jumped in with both feet and just did.

I got a couple of lucky breaks and was able to then leave the police department and concentrate on acting, which it's one of the biggest blessings in my life. It kind of saved my life. That's how I got into--

Alison Stewart: You can't suppress those urges too long, they'll come back. For creative people, you can't make them go away. They make themselves known.

David Zayas: Yes. A lot of people do and it kind of breaks them. I see it with my family. I see it--

Alison Stewart: Katy, we're going to hear a little bit of you as Ani. When we first meet Ani, what is her state of mind?

Katy Sullivan: I think Ani, when we meet her at first, she's shocked to see Eddie standing in front of her new apartment door. I think she's trying to figure out what are her next steps in-- She's six months post this injury, so I think she's just trying to figure out what does her life look like from this place? It's really complicated. It's really challenging. She needs a caregiver morning and night to help her just get in and out of the chair and daily living tasks and things like that. She's juggling a lot of heavy stuff and then she gets surprised by her separated husband standing in front of her door.

Alison Stewart: Let's listen. This is where Ani is still getting acclimated to her new body and her new life. Let's listen to a little bit of her explain this to Eddie. This is from Cost of Living.

Ani: Sometimes they give you physical therapy homework.

Eddie: Like what?

Ani: Like, "Try to move."

[laughter]

Ani: They do say I should listen to music.

Eddie: See? I was trying to tell you that. So you'll do that?

Ani: It's not [crosstalk].

Eddie: Do that, it works. I don't know how they don't explain it in the video but just listen to me.

Ani: I'm about to say some [unintelligible 00:12:44] and I want you to hear it. Okay? Here's a notice, an advanced thing that I'm about to say some [unintelligible 00:12:51] I want you to hear, okay? You're listening?

Eddie: Yes.

Ani: Don't interrupt me.

Eddie: Yes. Okay, go on.

Ani: I'm sad--

Eddie: But you want the music?

[laughter]

Ani: I'm sad and I'm--

Eddie: You don't want the music.

Ani: I am sad and pissed and I'm going to be sad, pissed and sad for however long. I am pissed and sad and that's fine. I feel like feeling whatever I feel right now in my paper bag, and that's fine. There's no recovery from this. My spinal cord is shattered. This is it. I know you know that, so please just don't. Okay?

Alison Stewart: That scene is so moving to me, and I'll tell you why. It's a little bit personal. Over the course of the year, I have a family member who was very, very, very ill and had to be in hospital for months and months in rehab and is just getting back and had to relearn to walk. I saw the play and I came back and I said that line to her, and she's like, "Oh my God, somebody understands that I'm pissed and sad and sad and pissed and that's just the way it's going to be for a while." Really, I just want to say, Martyna, that really meant a lot to my family, that line. It hit me just in that moment and hearing it again. Ah. Plays do affect people in ways you never even know.

Martytna Majok: Thank you so much. That's really meaningful. Thank you.

Alison Stewart: Katy, you originated the role, correct? Yes?

Katy Sullivan: Yes.

Alison Stewart: How has your performance developed over time having lived with Ani for a while?

Katy Sullivan: It's been over the course of over six years at this point since the first time I was sent the script. I have grown with her. So much has happened, I think, to us as a global community in the last couple of years that it's impossible for Ani to be the same Ani that she was when we were off-Broadway in 2017. At this point, it has the feeling to me of almost visiting an old friend. I have so much love and respect for her and for her tenacity and her resolve to figure out her life from this place.

I think that the feelings of loneliness and isolation that she also is wrestling with is something that I understand in a new way post this weird couple of years that we've had. I think she's evolved in some really-- The depth of my understanding of who she is has really evolved, which is really lovely.

Alison Stewart: Before we wrap, I did want to ask you, Martyna, a little bit about the other two characters of John and Jess because there's just a lot in their relationship as well. There's the race issue. Kara Young plays the character, other actresses of color have played the character of Jess, the woman who is his home health aide. He's one of these people who let's you know he went to Harvard within two sentences of meeting him. He's got money.

There's a certain sort of seduction that goes on, without giving too much away, that leads to some really heartbreaking moments. As you were writing this, I was very curious about what your thoughts about class distinction in this country and assumptions we make about people.

Martyna Majok: Oh, man. That's the thing that I think if I write one thing for the rest of my life, it's probably going to be that. I think that that's-- I grew up with very little money and a lot of immigration issues, and then I went to a fancy university and was confronted with the way that other people have lived their lives. That to me blew my mind and I feel like I see it in the way that we speak to each other, in the way that we regard each other so much, like what a person has, where they're coming from.

I'm not even conscious of it when I'm writing, it always ends up coming out. It informs so much about what people are able to do, what they can imagine for themselves with one's own finite life based on how much money that they have. It was always and probably always will be in my plays.

Alison Stewart: That was my conversation with Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Martyna Majok and actors Katy Sullivan and David Zayas about their Tony-nominated show, Cost of Living. Stick around for more All of It. Next hour, we'll continue our chats with Tony nominees, including Ben Platt, who stars in Parade, as well as Bonnie Milligan and Alli Mauzey from Kimberly Akimbo. That's after the news. Stay with us.

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