Hampstead has become quite a hit-factory since Ed Hall took over. His foreign policy is admirably simple. He scours New York for popular shows and spirits them over to London. His latest effort, Cost of Living, has attracted the film-star talent of Adrian Lester, who plays Eddie, a loquacious white trucker from Utah. (His ethnicity is made clear in the dialogue and the relevant lines have been left unchanged.) Earnest Eddie tells us about himself in a 15-minute monologue at the top of the show. Rather a clunky device. He’s a bookish teetotaller with a strong work ethic who appreciates the landscape of Utah, enjoys listening to Erik Satie’s over-played Gymnopédies, and spends his evenings and weekends caring for his -crippled ex-wife who lost both her legs in an accident.
How real is Eddie? A sensitive, noble, charming, do-gooding redneck who doesn’t drink? He feels like a midwest fantasy figure invented by an east coast sentimentalist. Lacking flaws and rough edges, he’s hard to warm to, and although his tenderness to his wife (doomed to death, we learn, in the opening lines) is rather touching, it’s also a bit tiresome and static.
Luckily there’s a secondary drama to enjoy in this ill-structured play. We dart between Eddie and two unconnected characters who are also struggling with disability. John is a rich, snobbish and rather likeable young cripple. Jess is a bombshell cocktail waitress hired to shower and shave John every morning. Their wonky relationship, fraught with danger and temptation, feels wholly original. It’s fascinating to watch the power-play between the prickly, cerebral John and the sexy but tough-minded Jess. All the wealth and the authority reside with the master of the house and yet his diligent maidservant has the right to strip him naked each morning and to carry his helpless frame into the bathroom where she applies her sponge to every inch of his frail but still libidinous body.
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