NO PLACE LIKE HOME ☆☆☆☆
Camden People’s Theatre, London
Just as Queerguru is looking towards the end of year review of our favorite shows this outstanding one man show about male violence within the gay scene has given us pause for thought. When there is a show this good about something despicable maybe celebration is the wrong word.
No Place Like Home is written by Alex Roberts and originally created with Jac Cooper and Cameron Carver for Starting Blocks 2019 at Camden People’s Theater. Roberts plays the narrator and the two main characters, Connor and Rob.
Connor is the Gen Z newbie in the gay bar. Fresh to the scene but bursting out like Venus fully formed from the shell, versed in the YouTube and Insta version of gay culture, the one thing he is missing is the actual experience of going to a bar alone and trying to feel at home. Sassy on the outside and raw on the inside his charming clumsy eagerness is easy to spot across a bar even though he feels invisible.
Rob offers an older low key, experienced friendliness. Not pushy to begin with he seems like he could be a sexy starter guy for Connor. Underneath, however, there is a damaged and brutal trap for Connor to fall into.
Roberts plays both parts seamlessly and simultaneously. It’s a fascinating masterclass in control to see the reversal of a baseball cap swipe the two guys left and right like a Tinder nightmare. Voice, mannerism and vocabulary lubricated effortlessly.
The night ends in violence. Rob’s rationalizations are offered up, a broken relationship, a desperate need for connection, a world-weary hope that Conner would be the one. Couched in the terms of a police interview, though, a necessary question mark rightly hangs over his excuses.
The show is performed in a kind of rhythmic prose that is neither song nor poetry. The language is realistic and familiar and so the audience is kept close, maybe too close for everyone’s comfort. The show is supported by the LGBT Helpline and there are both trigger warnings and a number to call if needed.
The writing does an excellent job of balancing the notion that the violence that circles LGBT spaces and makes them a refuge sometimes leaks through in the form of internalized homophobia, without ever excusing violence, blaming victims or letting an aggressor off the hook. It also keeps the door open to the notion of evil, insanity and violent dispositions that haunt humanity not just the LGBT community.
Roberts performance is fantastic. Whether it’s as the fresh-faced Connor, the deceptively everyday Rob or at one point a karaoke Judy Garland his switches never failed to deliver compelling characterization. No Place Like Home is necessarily dark but Roberts still lights up the stage.
http://www.cptheatre.co.uk
Until Nov 28th 2019
Review by Andrew HebdenQueerguru Correspondent Andrew Hebden is a MEDIA & CULTURAL STUDIES graduate spending his career between London, Beijing and NYC as an expert in media and social trends. As part of the expanding minimalist FIRE movement he recently returned to the UK and lives in Soho. He devotes as much time as possible to the movies, theatre and the gym. His favorite thing is to try something (anything) new every da
Labels: 2019, Andrew Hebden, London Theatre, review
