Grief Unspoken in Martyna Majok’s Cost of Living

Even though we do not decide when we finish grieving, we are told by the world in manifold ways when we should finish grieving. However, Judith Butler argues that there is a dehumanizing harm in this societal pressure to rush grief. She maintains that time spent in grief is important because it calls our attention to the vulnerability and interdependence we all have in common. With Butler’s idea in mind, and with a focus on embodiment that takes direction from Maurice Merleau-Ponty, I argue that Martyna Majok’s Cost of Living, a play centred on relationships between disabled people and their caregivers, not only dramatizes an earnest approach to grief but also shows us rich modes of connection that are shaped by grief. Importantly, Majok portrays these connections as they form in time, illuminating overlaps between grief time and crip time out of which fresh possibilities of affiliation arise. Silence and faltering speech are crucial in Majok’s portrayal of characters’ attempts at love in and through loss – attempts whose political import is found in the very uncertainty of their outcome. Majok’s silences also open up participatory spaces for readers to engage in an affective experience of grief, offering a taste of what it might be like to pursue a love without guarantees.