„There is no greater disability in society than the inability to see a person as more...

” – Robert Hensel
There is a plan, a purpose, a value for each life, no matter the place, the gender, the age or the
disability. People tend to behave with the persons with disabilities, like they are aliens, they don’t come
from a bad place: there are prejudices, some of us are even rejecting them... it’s a delicate subject, and
people should be educated, but I understood that these „disabilities” are provoked by the society that we live
in, than by a diagnosis or the disability itself.
It is fascinating how Martyna writes about a delicate subject, about the unseen people, although they
are alwys there, they have always been... about the people that are several times rejected, that are not
involved in regular activities, and in this case they are part of a play.
In the last day of the Festival at the University Of Arts from Târgu Mureş (November 2018), there
was a reading stage “Cost of living”, directed by Ovidiu Caiţă, with four actors from the National Theatre in
Târgu Mureş: Elena Purea, Dan Rădulescu, Loredana Dascălu and Andrei Chiran, in the presence of
Martyna Majok, the playwright.
Martyna Majok is the winner of the Pulitzer Prize in 2018 with the best theatre play „Cost of living”,
that was translated in three languages: Romanian, Hungarian and Polish.
I had the honour and the pleasure to talk with Martyna, a special playwright, valuable, warm and
humble, a smiling, positive and very cooperative person. I will leave you here a samll interview, from which
you can draw the conclusions about what means the „Cost of living”.

S.T. You won a Pulitzer Prize with the play „Cost of living”. Is this your first prize? And what was
your reaction? What does this prize mean to you?
M.M. Not my first prize, but a really big one. I didn’t know that it was gonna happen. Sometimes,
when you are nominated for an award, you just know that you are a finalist. It was a very ugly day, it
was raining and it was a very sad day and I got a phone call from my agent, I thought he was joking,
I got mad at him for ten minutes, and then I saw on the internet. It was a very exciting day.
What it means? Plays like mine and plays like Lucy Thurber, who was also here with the playwriting
camp, they are about people that are not often on stage and don’t get as much visibility and so I hope
that the award makes that plays like this done and seen more, so that their stories are told more and
also it calls for two disabled actors, which means there is going to be more work for them in the
future.

S.T. What did the jury say about the play? How did they argued their decision?
M.M. I don’t know. I have no idea, I wasn’t in the room (laughing ) They said... I didn’t memorize
what they said... they spoke about the four different persons that were in the play, from these areas
that we don’t get to see very often. I would be very curious how did they decide that.

S.T. What is the theme and the story of the play? Why did you choose this theme? Why the disabled
character ? (the idea of the play)
M.M. It came out of grief, actually, it was a difficult economic situation for me, I am an immigrant,
with a low income, I had a difficult year, in which I was barely surviving and I started to write these
short stories of the characters, and after one year I realized, that they were actually talking to each
other, maybe they were part of the same world, but it came out of loneliness, grief and economic
difficulty.
I didn’t write a play about disability, but a lot of people bring that up, because we don’t have that
many plays about that; for me they are just characters that happened to be disabled, there are two
women, there are people of „colour”, they are immigrants, it’s political through the personal.

S.T. Has it been played somewhere else? How did the public react?
M.M. Yes, in 2016, it was the first production in Williamston at a Theatre Festival, and then in 2017
at Manhattan Theatre Club in New York and now it’s playing in Los Angeles at Fountain Theatre.
Next month, the premiere will be in London. In Poland, it has been translated in Polish, too, I was
born there.

S.T. Why is the title „Cost of living?

M.M. I didn’t have a title for a long time, I didn’t have an ending scene. The titles are very difficult
for me, because once you decide, the people will only think about that while watching the play. We
did a reading and somebody in the audience said: “The cost of living is very high for these people”
and I said that sounds good, it is dual, like when you want to move to a town and see if you can
afford to live there, for example the cost of living in New York is bigger comparing to a smaller
town. But it is the double poetic meaning: what it costs to trust, and love and live in the world…

S.T. What are the secrets of a successful theatre play?

M.M. I am still trying to figure that out. I think that you have to be honest, to see the experiences
you have been going through. If you are happy, if you are satisfied, than that’s the most important,
you feel like you have made a truthful thing, because sometimes, people’s reaction might be
different, they might not see the same thing. As long as you feel you said the most truthful thing, that
is the real success.

S.T. What is the cost of living for you?

M.M. Good question. I think that when you are an artist, trust is very difficult. What we’re trying to
do with our plays and with ourselves is to communicate, to try to understand who we are, and in
order to do that, it is necessary to give something to the others, and trusting that they will hold it,
respect it. But if you don’t do that, you’ll live kind of closed off.
It costs to love, it costs to trust, it costs somebody to give themselves, but I’d prefer that, to be
potentially loved than not being at all, and you might get hurt, but it’s probably worth it.