Home

by Geoff Sobelle
Singapore International Festival of Arts 2025
Drama Centre Theatre, Singapore

What makes a house a home? Is it the physical structure – the walls, floors and furniture? Or is it the people, colouring the space with their unique sounds, smells and experiences? Home, an experiential work created by US-based performer Geoff Sobelle and presented as part of the Singapore International Festival of Arts, attempts to answer just that.

We start with a completely bare stage. A man (Sobelle) attempts to build a wall out of a few wooden frames. Soon, an entire two-storey house appears before our eyes, actors dressed as construction workers marching up and down in choreographed precision. As they install doors and railings, gradually filling the structure full of objects, we see it turn into a home populated with everyday people. The performance is entirely wordless, a flurry of movement and music, and this makes it all the more universal. Inhabitants go through their daily routines – waking up, using the bathroom, making breakfast, throwing out the trash, seemingly oblivious of one another. There is hilarity and heartbreak in the interactions. It’s almost as if the ghosts of all the people who have ever shared the house have been brought together, time and space collapsing into a singular present that holds them all.

There's a wonderful aspect of illusion to Home that adds to its magic. In one scene, a man pulls the covers over himself in bed only to emerge as a woman. Elsewhere, a chorus line of towel-clad actors take turns entering and disappearing behind a shower curtain. Director Lee Sunday Evans gives the piece a beautiful blend of structure and carefree abandon that makes us feel as if we are in the middle of a smoothly choreographed dance sequence one moment, a rowdy party the next. Live music by composer Elvis Perkins adds to the elegiac, wistful quality of the piece. 

Photo Credit: Moonrise Studio

Slowly, the endeavour grows larger. Audience members are coaxed onto the stage to join the action. At first it is just one or two individuals, then more and more are pulled up until there are literally dozens of people on stage. They seem so completely in control of what they are doing that one is almost convinced that they have been planted. An audience member enthusiastically greets guests at a party that she appears to host, confidently handing out drinks. It is later revealed during the post-show dialogue that they were given very clear instructions by the cast to act in a certain way so that they appeared to be calling all the shots. This is audience participation on a completely different level and everyone gamely joins in.

We cycle through life’s experiences. Birthdays. Weddings. Graduations. Even a funeral. We celebrate Thanksgiving and Christmas. It feels that all of life itself is compressed within this rich human tapestry. And part of the beauty of this production is that we, the audience, are completely complicit. Cast members pass around a jar of olives so that we feel like we are part of the party we see onstage, we are asked to help string up lights across the theatre and even join in to sing a birthday song for a guest at a surprise party. 

Photo Credit: Moonrise Studio

Just as suddenly as it begins, we see people leave the space one by one. At one point, we are left with the sight of audience members carrying out the same, mundane household chores than the actors were doing earlier. And it does not feel any different. Eventually, items are placed in boxes for sale, rooms are cordoned off with sheets and lights are turned off. The house becomes an empty shell once again, waiting to be coloured by another set of people and experiences. It makes us reflect on all the houses we have inhabited over our lives - how they were when we arrived, how we ultimately left them. What made them feel like "home" to us? 

Home is a production that may feel unwieldy at times but gently coalesces into something far greater and more powerful than the sum of its parts. This is a frankly astonishing show, by turns weird, whimsical and wonderful. As much as it is about the idea of what makes a "home", there’s also a clever idea of turning the theatre (incidentally referred to as a “house”) into a “home" – a place where people from all walks of life can come together and share a common experience, hopefully leaving the space richer and more fulfilled than when they arrived.

Isn't that what any of us would wish from life itself? 

The Crystalwords score: 4/5